Patient safety nonprofit ECRI has expanded its Problem Reporting Network to capture and investigate errors, malfunctions, and near misses involving AI tools and AI-enabled devices used in patient care, including those used in radiology.
The ECRI is calling on healthcare providers and clinicians nationwide to submit reports. It said the expansion addresses a gap in centralized tracking of how often clinical AI tools produce incorrect or misleading outputs that reach patients.
In a recent ECRI survey of 124 quality, safety, risk, and compliance leaders, nearly one-third reported encountering an AI output they believed was incorrect or misleading over the past year, and 9% reported an AI error reached a patient or affected a care decision, according to the organization. Ambient scribes were the most commonly encountered AI tools in the survey, ahead of EHR-embedded clinical decision support and clinical AI assistants.
The Problem Reporting Network has operated since 1972 and accepts free, confidential reports that are triaged and investigated by ECRI's clinical and engineering experts, who follow up directly with submitters and issue hazard reports to manufacturers, providers, and regulatory agencies when safety risks are identified.
