2026 GAHA Annual Meeting and Health Law Update-10

10 - Professionalism and AI

Pdf Summary

This presentation from Alston & Bird LLP explains how legal teams in healthcare should use AI responsibly, focusing on both ethical duties and practical vendor management. It begins by noting that AI use cases are expanding rapidly across administrative, clinical, and legal functions, while laws and regulations are still developing. Because AI creates significant risks—such as bias, discrimination, privacy breaches, inaccurate outputs, fraud, and loss of privilege—the speakers argue that governance is the best current approach.<br /><br />For lawyers, the presentation emphasizes three core professional duties: competence, confidentiality, and independent professional judgment. Competence requires understanding how AI works, its limits, and its risks, and receiving training before using generative AI on client matters. Lawyers must independently verify AI-generated citations and legal claims; failure to do so has led to real sanctions in cases such as Mata v. Avianca and Wadsworth v. Walmart. Confidentiality requires not entering sensitive client information into consumer AI tools without adequate security protections, and treating public AI systems as third parties unless enterprise safeguards are confirmed. The presentation also warns that AI chat logs may be discoverable and may waive privilege. Independent judgment means AI can assist with drafting, but lawyers cannot let it replace their own legal analysis or strategy decisions. Supervising lawyers remain responsible for nonlawyer assistance, including paralegals’ AI use.<br /><br />The final section addresses AI vendor diligence and contracting. Organizations should evaluate technology architecture, data use, training sources, performance metrics, bias testing, compliance, and security controls. Contracts should address data rights, indemnity, insurance, monitoring rights, change-notice procedures, validation obligations, and termination rights. Ongoing auditing and monitoring are essential because AI systems evolve over time and may drift, degrade, or create new risks.

Keywords

AI governance

healthcare legal teams

ethical duties

vendor management

lawyer competence

confidentiality

independent professional judgment

generative AI risks

vendor diligence

AI compliance