Artificial Intelligence in Hospital Management and Its Impacts on Patient Safety: Benefits, Challenges, and Future Perspectives

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been incorporated into health services to support management, process organization and patient care. This qualitative, descriptive article gathers and organizes the literature on the foundations of AI, its applications in hospital management, its impacts on patient safety, and the benefits, challenges and future prospects of its use. The literature points to applications in bed management, demand forecasting, staff scheduling, inventory and medication control, logistics, financial management, electronic health records and indicator dashboards. Regarding patient safety, there is evidence of reduced medication errors and potential for early identification of sepsis, clinical deterioration, falls, pressure injuries and healthcare-associated infections. However, results vary across tools, and independent validation, data quality, personal data protection, algorithmic bias, alert fatigue and staff training condition the benefit. AI should act as a complementary tool, under human supervision and governance, not as a substitute for clinical judgment and professional responsibility