2026 GAHA Annual Meeting and Health Law Update-05-08-26 - PPT - Professionalism and AI Presentation for GAHA(.1)

05-08-26 - PPT - Professionalism and AI Presentation for GAHA(.1)

Pdf Summary

This presentation examined the professional use of AI by legal teams in healthcare, focusing on both opportunities and risks. It noted that AI is rapidly expanding across administrative and clinical functions, while the legal and regulatory landscape is still evolving through executive actions, agency guidance, bar opinions, court decisions, and state laws.<br /><br />The speakers emphasized that AI governance is the preferred approach: organizations should create leadership oversight, written policies, inventory AI use cases, assess third-party tools, and continuously monitor and audit systems. The guiding principle was that AI must be used, but risks must be identified and managed.<br /><br />For lawyers, the presentation tied AI use to core professional duties. Under the duty of competence, attorneys must understand how AI works, receive training before using it on client matters, and never delegate legal judgment to AI. AI-generated work must be independently verified, especially citations and legal authorities. Cases such as Mata v. Avianca and Wadsworth v. Walmart illustrated sanctions for filing AI-generated false citations.<br /><br />Under the duty of confidentiality, lawyers must not input sensitive client information into AI tools without adequate security protections. Consumer chatbots should be treated as third parties unless enterprise safeguards are confirmed. A case involving Claude chat logs showed that AI prompts may waive privilege if shared with a third-party provider.<br /><br />The presentation also stressed independent professional judgment and supervision of nonlawyer assistance, including paralegals using AI. Finally, it covered vendor diligence and contracting, recommending careful review of data rights, security, training data, bias testing, compliance, audit rights, change-notice provisions, and termination rights.

Keywords

AI governance

healthcare legal teams

professional responsibility

duty of competence

duty of confidentiality

independent professional judgment

AI risk management

vendor diligence

legal ethics

third-party AI tools