AI Tagged as the Top Tech Hazard of 2025

By Eric Wicklund

AI may be at the top of the hype cycle in healthcare, but its uncertain governance and potential for misuse are also making it the top technology hazard for 2025.

‘Risks with AI-enabled health technologies’ soared to the top of ECRI’s annual top 10 health technology hazards, after placing fifth last year (when it was called ‘Insufficient governance of AI in medical technologies.’).

The rise to the top of the list underscores growing concern over AI. Health systems and hospitals are embracing the technology at a rapid pace, even as industry groups and the federal government try to keep up with governance.

According to the ECRI report, inaccurate or incomplete data fed into AI algorithms can lead to disparate health outcomes or inappropriate responses, as well as hallucinations and data drift. Healthcare leaders who don’t invest in and emphasize continuous monitoring run the risk of overlooking these lapses and threatening their patients.

“Further, AI solutions can yield disappointing results if organizations have unrealistic expectations, fail to define goals, provide insufficient governance and oversight, or don’t adequately prepare their data for use by the AI application,” the report stated.

Healthcare in the home setting continued to score high on the list, reflecting both the industry’s interest in remote patient monitoring and Hospital at Home strategies and a growing senior population interested in living out their years at home. ‘Unmet technology support needs for home care patients’ placed second on ECRI’s list, while last year’s list was led by ‘Usability challenges with medical devices in the home.’

“For many patients, healthcare at home is an attractive alternative to hospital-based treatment,” the report noted. “But delivering care in the home has unique concerns, particularly when the patient or a family member is responsible for operating a complex medical device. Devices such as ventilators, dialysis machines, and infusion pumps traditionally have been used in acute care settings under clinical supervision but increasingly are being used in the home.”

“Minimizing the risk of harm requires providing home users with the support they need to operate, maintain, and troubleshoot the device successfully,” researchers concluded. “This involves anticipating challenges that the user may face and selecting devices that are well matched to the patient and the environment of use.”

  • Vulnerable technology vendors and cybersecurity threats
  • Substandard or fraudulent medical devices and supplies
  • Fire risk from supplemental oxygen
  • Dangerously low default alarm limits on anesthesia units
  • Mishandled temporary holds on medication orders
  • Poorly managed infusion lines
  • Harmful medical adhesive products
  • Incomplete investigations of infusion system incidents

Cybersecurity scored high on the list, coming in third following a year in which data breaches and ransomware attacks often dominated the healthcare headlines. Last year, ‘Ransomware as a critical threat to the healthcare sector’ scored sixth—only a few months before the devastating Change Healthcare attack.

“Measures that can help a healthcare organization mitigate thirdparty risks include thoroughly vetting vendors at the start of the service acquisition process, building in redundancy, conducting incident response testing, and developing recovery procedures,” the report stated.

Eric Wicklund is the associate content manager and senior editor for Innovation at HealthLeaders.