AI changes who we are - doesn’t it? Intelligent decision support and physicians’ professional identity

Abstract

The impacts of intelligent systems on the future of work, society, and life in general are important topics of our time. In healthcare, particularly Intelligent Clinical Decision Support Systems (ICDSS) have the potential to enhance medical care by suggesting diagnosis or treatment plans(Agarwal and Dhar, 2014). However, one wrong decision can have fatal consequences. Hence, these systems require active users which have to handle the output of these systems. At the same time, ICDSS challenge physicians’ professional identity by being autonomous and potentially superior in decision-making. These systems can be threatening to physicians’ self-understanding or be perceived as enhancement to traditional roles. Our research aims to explore how ICDSS change the professional identity of physicians and which different strategies physicians use to deal with upcoming changes. We are currently developing a mixedmethod research study combing quantitative and qualitative data from a survey and in-depth interviews. In this research proposal, we present a literature-based framework, our research approach, and preliminary qualitative results. Understanding how the co-construction between ICDSS and physicians’ professional identity looks like will help to understand how intelligent systems change our understanding of our work and how this change can be actively shaped.