Artificial Intelligence in Allied Health Newsletter - July 2025

Happy July everyone! The last month has been jam-packed with travel for me, I had the privilege of attending SuperAI in Singapore in late June, then the Occupational Therapy Australia national conference in Adelaide shortly afterward. My key takeaways from SuperAI were:

• There are so many amazing, clever, inspirational people solving real problems all over the world, and that makes me happy!
• Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – we still don’t have a clear timeline on it’s development. One of the key bottlenecks is that AI tools can’t yet learn on the job, receive feedback and improve their performance over time like a human employee can.
• Cybersecurity and privacy in the age of AI is changing rapidly. Cyber defenders and cyber criminals are both using AI to defend against cyber attacks and to amplify the volume of attacks. It’s not a matter of “if” you (or your company) are the victim of a cyber attack, but instead a matter of “when.”

My takeaways from the Occupational Therapy Australia conference were:

• The world and technology is rapidly changing, which presents both opportunities and challenges.
• Occupational Therapists (and by extension allied health professionals) can and should be involved in tool/ technology development to make sure solutions are fit for purpose and meet the needs of clients.
• We can weave technology and client centred practice through a framework for human-technology collaboration. Dr Karen Jacobs presented a framework for this called TAPESTRY. Technology as an enabler; Authentic human connection; Person-centred practice; Ethical guardrails; Synthesising evidence; Therapeutic relationships; Reflection in action; Yielding better outcomes.

And finally, I had the absolute pleasure of co-presenting alongside Dr Karen Jacobs on her Australian AI and OT workshops. Together we ran what I’m calling the First Occupational Therapy Hackathon, where workshop participants worked together to create chatbots using no-code AI tools and pitch them to the wider group- it was amazing and energising to see what a bunch of clinicians, enabled with tools and given the opportunity can create! Watch this space for more hackathon opportunities coming over the next few months.

Industry News

ChatGPT Record

ChatGPT released a new recording mode which can transcribe and summarise audio recordings like meetings, brainstorms or voice notes. This feature is much like the AI Scribe tools we use and love in allied health that will transcribe a file note for you from a session. This might be helpful for users to dictate some thoughts, brainstorms or meeting reflections. OpenAI caution users that they check local laws and seeks “the right consents before recording others.” It is important to note though that ChatGPT does not meet health privacy standards in any jurisdiction around the world, so we wouldn’t recommend using this feature to record sessions with clients.
Read more about ChatGPT Record here

AMA Calls for Explainable AI

The American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a new policy in June 2025 calling for explainable clinical AI tools that include safety and efficiency data. The aim of this policy was to maximise trust and transparency around how AI tools come to their conclusions. The policy urges developers to design tools and provide clinicians clear information on their functionality, safety and effectiveness to enable clinicians to make informed decisions. This policy move agrees with the views held across the healthcare space, where most embrace the benefits of AI, but caution that the tools and the expansion of AI into healthcare must be safe with patient safety at the forefront.

Read the statement here

Research

The article “AI in Healthcare: Do Not Forget About Allied Healthcare” highlights how artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed many areas of healthcare, but largely overlooks the allied health professions, despite these professionals making up over 80% of the global healthcare workforce. The authors argue that AI tools are mostly designed for high-profile roles like doctors and surgeons, leaving allied health fields such as nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and dietetics under-served. They showcase examples of AI applications that could benefit allied health, from wearable sensors for nurses to AI-assisted rehabilitation tools for physiotherapists. The paper emphasises the need for AI companies to collaborate with allied health associations, develop patient-focused solutions, and invest in AI training for allied health professionals. They also discuss key challenges like bias, privacy, and adoption barriers, urging a more equitable and inclusive approach to AI in healthcare to alleviate workforce pressures and improve patient outcomes.

This is something I’m particularly passionate about and part of why I advocate so strongly for allied health codesign and involvement in tool development.

Read the article here

WORK Journal Special Edition on AI

I’m thrilled to share that I’ve been invited to be the guest editor for a special issue of WORK: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation, focussing on Artificial Intelligence.

If you’re working on research, have case studies, or would like to author a thought piece about AI, I’d love to hear from you! If you’re interested in contributing a paper, please get in touch!

Prompt of the Month

Each month, I’ll be sharing a useful AI prompt designed to enhance your practice. This one is to support us with reflective practice and growth.

You are a clinical communication coach. I’m going to share a de-identified transcript of a session with a client. Please analyse my responses and provide constructive feedback on my communication style. Highlight my strengths, areas for improvement, and suggest 2–3 practical strategies to enhance my client engagement and therapeutic rapport in future sessions. Ensure your feedback is professional, supportive, and tailored for an allied health practitioner.

How to use it:

1. Copy and paste a de-identified transcript of your session into your AI tool (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude).
2. Paste in the prompt above.
3. Review the feedback and consider one small change you could trial in your next session.

Tried this prompt? Send me an email and let me know how you found it!

Upcoming Events

Free: The Group Chat – group supervision/ community of practice

When: Thursday, 24^th July 2025. 11am-12pm AEST (Australian Eastern Standard Time- Sydney/ Melbourne time).

Find your timezone here

Where: Online via Zoom
Cost: Free

Join me for a free, interactive "group chat" to share all things AI in allied health. It's a group supervision, community of practice, or interest group- whatever you want to call it, I'm calling it the 'group chat.' This session will be an open, informal, and mostly unstructured discussion for brainstorming, sharing ideas and challenges and peer learning!

The session will be recorded and available to those unable to attend live.

Sign up here

Coming Soon: AI in Practice: A Hands-On Guide for Allied Health

I’ve been quietly working on a brand-new self-paced course designed to help you confidently integrate AI into your everyday practice. It’s called AI in Practice: A Hands-On Guide for Allied Health, and it’s packed with real examples, walkthroughs, and tools you can actually use. It’s not quite finished yet (I’m putting the final touches together now!), but it’ll be ready very soon. If you’d like early access or to be first to know when it drops, hit reply and let me know.

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