IAC: A Framework for Enabling Patient Agency in the Use of AI-Enabled Healthcare

In healthcare, the role of AI is continually evolving, and understanding the challenges its introduction poses on relationships between healthcare providers and patients will require a regulatory and behavioral approach that can provide a guiding base for all users involved. In this paper, we present IAC (Informing, Assessment, and Consent), a framework for evaluating patient response to the introduction of AI-enabled digital technologies in healthcare settings. We justify the need for IAC with a general introduction of the challenges with and perceived relevance of AI in human-welfare-centered fields, with an emphasis on the provision of healthcare. The framework is composed of three core principles that guide how healthcare practitioners can inform patients about the use of AI in their healthcare, how practitioners can assess patients' acceptability and comfortability with the use of AI, and how patient consent can be gained after this process. We propose that the principles composing this framework can be translated into guidelines that improve practitioner-patient relationships and, concurrently, patient agency regarding the use of AI in healthcare while broadening the discourse on this topic.