Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been developed and implemented in healthcare with the valuable potential to reduce health, social, and economic inequities, help actualize universal health coverage, and improve health outcomes on a global scale. The application of AI in emergency surgery settings could improve clinical practice and operating rooms management by promoting consistent, high-quality decision making while preserving the importance of bedside assessment and human intuition as well as respect for human rights and equitable surgical care, but ethical and legal issues are slowing down surgeons’ enthusiasm. Emergency surgeons are aware that prioritizing education, increasing the availability of high AI technologies for emergency and trauma surgery, and funding to support research projects that use AI to provide decision support in the operating room are crucial to create an emergency “intelligent” surgery.

Conclusions

Education, accessibility to high technology devices and AI tools, and research funding are the keys to create an emergency “intelligent” surgery and improve the management of patients in difficult and stressful settings.

The application of AI in emergency and trauma surgery settings could improve clinical practice by promoting consistent, high-quality decision making while preserving the importance of bedside assessment and human intuition as well as respect for human rights and equitable surgical care.

Emergency surgeons are ready to contribute with international, high quality, clinical and surgical data (registers) to develop inclusive and effective algorithms and to work on an intelligence emergency and trauma surgery.