Mercy School of Nursing Dean Leads Important Conversation on AI in Nursing Education
“Nurses must not only use AI, we must influence it,” said Kenya Beard, EdD, AGACNP-BC, ANEF, FADLN, FAAN, dean of 鶹’s School of Nursing. “We must shape the algorithms, the ethics and the innovations that will determine who gets care, how it's delivered and how outcomes are measured. Because the future of healthcare is not waiting. It is now.”
This is how Beard opened the New York Academy of Medicine’s webinar entitled “The AI Nurse Nexus: Unmasking Artificial Intelligence for Students, Educators and Nurse Leaders.” She moderated the October 30 event, which was co-sponsored by 鶹’s School of Nursing. Through short talks and breakout sessions, the almost 200 leaders, nurse educators and students in attendance gained practical strategies for integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into their work. Ultimately, the webinar aimed to position nurses not only to adapt to change but to shape it in order to ensure that they can continue to improve outcomes and advance health equity.
By leading conversations like this one, Mercy’s School of Nursing continues to be at the forefront of integrating AI into nursing. Mercy also brings these insights into its nursing education. For example, Beard mentioned that Mercy students will be using ambient listening — AI-powered voice recognition software that captures and interprets clinical conversations in real time — when providing patient handoffs during clinical simulations . Building this AI literacy will ensure that students are truly ready for the workforce. Still, Beard acknowledged that she wants to continue discussing how to avoid the potential downsides of using AI, including “cognitive debt” in which AI reliance can reduce users’ critical thinking, creativity and memory.
In a short introductory talk, Kathleen McGrow, D.N.P. — global chief nursing innovation officer at Microsoft — compared AI to the stethoscope, noting that groundbreaking medical tools often face initial skepticism before becoming standard practice. She asserted that AI is more than upgraded technology, however. “AI represents a fundamental shift in healthcare,” she said. “Together, we can shorten the path from discovery to delivery and transform patient outcomes globally.” She asserted that Microsoft aims to compress the next 250 years of science into the next 25 years by building technology that empowers everyone to achieve more.
Olga Kagan, Ph.D., R.N. — educator, researcher and entrepreneur — called on nurse educators and nursing schools to see AI as an opportunity. She spoke about the need to reframe assessments, redesign curriculum and re-skill faculty. Reframing assessments involve rewriting them to focus on students’ clinical judgment, not their answers — perhaps asking students to use AI to generate three conflicting diagnoses and then justify with evidence which one is most appropriate. Redesigning curriculum involves incorporating lessons on AI ethics and tasks such as critiquing the documentation generated by an electronic health record's AI summarization tool. She asserted that faculty should use AI for specific tasks — such as drafting rubrics or synthesizing dense literature — to save their time and energy for the empathetic teaching that only humans can do.
Kagan explained that we must make these changes because our current model of education is not sufficient. “Our students are not training for yesterday's hospital,” she said. “They're walking into a future where AI handles data synthesis, diagnostics and documentation summaries. If we continue to reward recall, we produce legacy nurses skilled in tasks that are about to be automated. If we fail to teach them AI literacy, the ability to govern and critique the technology, we jeopardize safe and competent care because they cannot manage the system they will inherit.”
Delaney La Rosa, Ed.D., M.S.N. Ed., R.N. — educator, academic leader and founder of the AI Nurse Nexus — also gave a short talk, customizing her breakout session to focus on what the attendees wanted to learn about. She introduced several helpful tools, such as Logically, which offers students an affordable way to conduct literature searches and synthesize research while avoiding plagiarism.
During a short question and answer session, one attendee asked how AI can be used to enhance — rather than replace — clinical judgment and critical thinking. La Rosa gave an example of students using chatbots to come up with cases, role-play responses and then assess their knowledge and skills. Another attendee asked how nurse leaders, nurse educators and students can reduce their apprehension about AI. Kagan suggested that it all starts with practice. She recommended trying many different tools without falling in love with any one product since the landscape changes quickly.
Breakout sessions gave the experts a chance to give specific recommendations for each audience. In a breakout session for nurse leaders, McGrow discussed the need for institutions to assess their internal resources as they plan their AI strategy. For example, they should consider the internal structures — such as a Center for Excellence — that can drive AI strategy, and they should gauge the institution’s current AI maturity level too. In a breakout session for nurse educators, Kagan shared many tools that educators can use, such as Bolt to build electronic health records, Julius to analyze large data sets and Gamma to design slides. In a breakout session for nursing students, La Rosa demonstrated AI study tools, including NotebookLM, which shares open textbooks as engaging podcasts and creates flashcards, and ChatGPT’s study mode, which guides students using questioning.
It is clear that the future of healthcare will be shaped by AI. The only question is whether the nursing profession will be leading that transformation or simply adapting to it. Based on the conversations Mercy is leading and engaging in, it is increasingly clear that nursing is ready to lead.