Nurses back on the march against AI in healthcare

The nationwide movement of nurses against AI has received an energy infusion in New York City. The renewed campaign owes to the influence of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), which recently rallied on the steps of City Hall in Manhattan and testified before the city council. 

The union’s leaders have more on their mind than AI, but their messaging on that front packs a lot of punch into a New York minute. 

“We’re here to say enough is enough,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, RN, said in remarks released in mid-November and delivered a week or so later. “The wealthiest hospitals need to stop playing games with artificial intelligence and invest in care for those who need it most.”

Meanwhile Denash Forbes, RN, a NYSNA director at large and ICU nurse at Mount Sinai West, informally charged New York hospitals with “investing in untested AI technologies instead of prioritizing safe patient care.” 

Forbes said her hospital has shelled out more than $100 million on AI yet still counts on nurses to make sure the technology makes no mistakes. 

Besides, she contends, “Every patient deserves a real nurse at their bedside.”

A hospital’s side of the story 

The New York activism follows organized protests that have popped up around the country since at least 2023. That’s when the California Nurses Association took to the streets of Los Angeles chanting “Trust nurses, not AI.” 

Now as then, hospitals are defending themselves against accusations of sacrificing care quality for the sake of technology-enabled—and financially motivated—efficiency.

Maimonides Medical Center, the employer of NYSNA President Hagans, tellsNewsweek it uses a “rigorous review process with direct input from clinicians before implementing any new technology to improve patient care, including AI.” 

AI “offers powerful tools to improve clinical outcomes and patient experience, always under the guidance of doctors and nurses responsible for taking care of our patients,” the hospital added. 

What’s greed got to do with it? 

The well-attended demonstration at City Hall was just one of several activities NYSNA spearheaded in November. Not all zeroed in on AI, but AI loomed large in the group’s list of general safety warnings and working condition complaints. 

NYSNA is currently maintaining a website titled “NYC Hospital Greed.” It catalogues the union’s most pressing grievances and expresses spirited criticisms of operational priorities at three NYC teaching hospitals—Montefiore, Mount Sinai and NewYork-Presbyterian. 

“New York City’s hospitals are pushing back on their nurses who are demanding safe staffing, no more staff or service cuts that harm patient care, stronger health and safety and workplace violence protections, guardrails on the use of artificial intelligence in patient care, and fair wages and benefits to recruit and retain enough nurses for quality care,” the website reads. 

“The union contracts for approximately 20,000 New York City nurses at 12 hospitals will expire on Dec. 31, 2025,” the page adds. “New York City hospitals can afford to invest in safe patient care.”

Also covering the story, as only it can, is the New York Post. Headline: “NYC nurses claim hospitals quietly rolled out AI tech that’s threatening jobs—and patients’ safety.” 

For more coverage of nurses protesting AI in healthcare, past as well as present, click here.