The use of artificial intelligence (AI) has hit health care like a tidal wave. Everyone wants it, though there is still much uncertainty about how to use it, as well as fears and misunderstandings about what it can and can’t do. However, AI is here to stay, and practitioners are seeing AI employed in clinical decision-making support systems, predictive analytics, patient risk assessments, wearable devices for patient monitoring, and other tasks and activities. Ideally, AI can automate administrative tasks and take on other roles to give nurses more time for hands-on resident care – the work that drew them to nursing and caring for older adults. It is important to understand how AI is actually affecting nurses in senior living/long-term care and how nursing professionals are using this technology.

AI has many roles in health care, and this technology is being used by both administrative and clinical teams. Uses include providing assistance with diagnoses, clinical decision-making prompts, communication and interactions through chatbots and virtual assistants, data analysis and assessment, drug development and research support, and treatment algorithms, among other things. Ideally, appropriate use of AI has some key benefits, including improving outcomes and lowering costs. Tim Holahan, DO, CMD, associate professor of medicine at the University of Rochester and a multi-facility medical director in New York, noted, “There's a lot more streamlined data processing and chart review that AI can help with that can really make our lives much easier.”