75% of patients worry about AI harm accountability in healthcare
ALPHEN AAN DEN RIJN, NETHERLANDS — Three in four patients don’t know who is responsible if artificial intelligence (AI) contributes to harm in their care — a trust deficit emerging in parallel with rapid AI adoption across healthcare.
According to a survey from Wolters Kluwer, the data suggests the technology is moving faster than the governance frameworks designed to manage it.
AI accountability gap widens with adoption
The findings come from a nationally representative survey of 355 United States healthcare professionals and 254 patients, conducted by Ipsos for Wolters Kluwer Health in March 2026. Greg Samios is CEO of Wolters Kluwer Health; Peter Bonis, MD, serves as its Chief Medical Officer.
“75% of patients are concerned about accountability if AI contributes to harm,” the Wolters Kluwer survey found — a concern compounded by simultaneous enthusiasm for AI-assisted health information.
78% of patients expect clinicians to verify AI answers before acting on them — and 61% report concern about advertiser-driven bias in AI health information.
Despite those concerns, 70% of patients believe AI improves health literacy and engagement with their own health. Sixty percent say their clinicians openly engage with AI-sourced information during appointments — a sign that AI is embedded in care conversations whether governance structures are ready or not.
Clinicians flag hallucinations and deskilling risks
Clinicians share patients’ unease — and add clinical-specific concerns. Seventy-four percent identified AI hallucinations as a major risk; a separate 74% flagged deskilling — the erosion of clinical judgment from overreliance on AI-generated recommendations.
Seventy-two percent were separately concerned about advertiser-driven bias in AI tools themselves.
“Only 27% of clinicians are aware of formal AI governance policies at their organizations,” the survey found — up from 21% in 2025, but still a minority of the clinical workforce operating with structured AI oversight.
53% of clinicians want AI to show detailed reasoning, and 77% already double-check AI answers against original sources — a sign that trust is contingent on transparency.
Ninety percent or more of both clinicians and patients agree that human experts should validate AI-generated clinical content. The consensus is there. The infrastructure isn’t.
The healthcare outsourcing sector — a multibillion-dollar industry covering clinical documentation, prior authorization, medical coding, and revenue cycle management — is increasingly positioned as the human validation layer in AI-assisted workflows. When internal governance is thin, external compliance expertise fills the gap.
For health systems moving faster on AI adoption than their risk frameworks allow, outsourced clinical operations offer one structural buffer between AI outputs and patient harm.
