Salman Al-Sabah: Adoption of the Artificial Intelligence Guide

The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, Sheikh Dr. Salman Khalifa Al-Sabah, issued an administrative decision approving and publishing the practical guide for the use of linguistic artificial intelligence tools and large language models in clinical practice. In a press statement, the Ministry of Health said the decision serves as a guidance framework for staff in health facilities under the ministry, balancing the benefits of the capabilities offered by these technologies on one hand, with the protection of patient privacy, practice safety, and professional responsibility on the other. It added that the objective of the decision is to enable the safe and responsible use of artificial intelligence tools, emphasizing that their outputs remain supportive and non-definitive, do not replace professional judgment or medical responsibility, and must not be considered a final reference, an approved clinical recommendation, or a substitute for a physician’s or healthcare specialist’s assessment. The Ministry clarified that the decision stresses the protection of patient data confidentiality and health information, and prohibits the input, upload, or copying of identifiable or confidential data—including patient names, civil ID numbers, medical record numbers, images, audio recordings, laboratory results, radiology reports, discharge summaries, and screenshots—into any linguistic tool, cloud service, or platform not officially approved by the relevant authorities within the ministry. It affirmed that linguistic artificial intelligence tools or associated cloud services must not be used with actual patient data or confidential or operational data belonging to the ministry unless they are officially approved and comply with data protection, information security, cloud computing, patient confidentiality, and applicable technical and legal controls in the State of Kuwait. The decision also prohibits relying on the outputs of these tools as the sole basis for diagnosis, treatment, prescription writing, dosage calculation, interpretation of tests, or decisions regarding admission, discharge, referral, triage, and prediction of disease severity. It noted that their use as a tool can assist with learning, structuring thought, expanding possibilities, and summarizing information, provided that outputs and their sources are rigorously verified and reviewed by the responsible specialist before being used in professional or clinical practice.