STAT+: Nurses seek a seat at the table as they fight expanding clinical AI
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- Nurses, the largest segment of the U.S. health care workforce, are growing more vocal about clinical AI risks to their jobs and patient care as the technology deepens its foothold in medicine
- Montefiore hospital in the Bronx saw laid-off nurses raise alarms about administrative AI they say is replacing their roles
- Kaiser Permanente nurses in California are striking and picketing against AI tools they say surveil their work and increasingly shape patient care
- National Nurses United, a union representing over 200,000 nurses including those at Montefiore and Kaiser, has been among the loudest collective voices on AI-related workplace concerns
- Educators and researchers are developing training programs and seeking to embed nurses in the design and deployment of patient-facing AI to shift the relationship from adversarial to collaborative
- The advocacy spans workplace bargaining at specific hospitals and longer-term academic efforts to give nurses input before AI systems are rolled out in clinical settings
- Other sources covering this story — KFF Health News, Healthcare Dive — frame the dispute primarily around labor and job displacement, while the STAT piece also spotlights the training and design-inclusion track that researchers are pursuing
Why it matters: With National Nurses United's 200,000+ members mobilizing at hospitals like Montefiore and Kaiser Permanente, clinical AI adoption now faces organized labor opposition that could reshape how hospitals deploy algorithmic tools, while the parallel push to seat nurses at the AI design table could determine whether the technology is built with bedside workflow in mind or around it.
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