Twenty percent of healthcare providers have admittedly used unapproved artificial intelligence diagnostic and medical tools that haven’t been vetted or approved by their organizations, according to a recent survey by Wolters Kluwer Health, revealing a growing shadow AI healthcare Wolters Kluwer trend with real implications for patient safety and data privacy.
The Scale of Shadow AI Healthcare Wolters Kluwer Survey Found
The December 2025 survey of 518 healthcare providers and administrators found that 40% of respondents had encountered an unauthorized AI tool in their organization, and nearly 20% admitted to using one themselves. About 1 in 10 said they had used an unauthorized AI tool for direct patient care specifically.
Why Speed and Curiosity Drive This Behavior
The top reasons cited were a need for faster workflows, with more than a quarter of providers and 10% of administrators pointing to curiosity or experimentation as their motivation for trying unapproved tools. “Doctors and administrators are choosing AI tools for speed and workflow optimization, and when approved options aren’t available, they may be taking risks,” said Yaw Fellin, senior vice president and general manager of clinical decision support and provider solutions at Wolters Kluwer Health.
Why This Shadow AI Healthcare Wolters Kluwer Trend Raises Governance Concerns
“Shadow AI isn’t just a technical issue; it’s a governance issue that may raise patient safety concerns,” Fellin said. “Leaders must act now to close the policy gap around AI use, develop clear compliance guidelines, and ensure that only validated, secure, enterprise-ready AI tools are used in clinical care.”
A Notable Gap in Policy Involvement
The survey also found administrators are three times more likely than providers to be actively involved in healthcare AI policy development, 30% compared with 9%, suggesting policy ownership remains concentrated within administrative roles even as frontline providers are the ones most directly encountering and using unapproved tools.
Corroborating Evidence From a Separate Paubox Survey
A separate survey of 150 U.S. healthcare IT and compliance leaders from Paubox, a HIPAA-compliant email security firm, found that 95% of healthcare organizations report employees with access to protected health information already using AI tools in email, even though one in four organizations have not formally approved any AI use at all.
Why HIPAA Compliance Assumptions Compound This Risk
Seventy-five percent of healthcare IT and compliance leaders in the Paubox survey believe employees mistakenly assume tools like Microsoft Copilot are automatically HIPAA compliant, a misconception that could leave organizations exposed to violations involving business associate agreements and audit trail requirements they may not realize apply to these tools.
Why Security Teams Are Struggling to Keep Pace With Shadow AI Healthcare
Eighty-three percent of healthcare IT and compliance leaders in the Paubox survey have raised internal concerns about AI security, with pressure coming from both ends of the organization: executives eager to boost productivity and frontline staff looking for faster ways to complete their work. “This is the classic case of innovation outpacing governance,” said Rick Kuwahara, chief compliance officer at Paubox. “AI adoption is moving faster than its safeguards. Shadow AI is the new shadow IT.”
Why This Combination Creates a Governance Race
This dual pressure, from leadership pushing productivity gains and staff seeking faster workflows, creates a governance challenge that compliance teams often cannot match in real time, since new AI tools can enter daily use through existing applications before formal review processes even become aware of them.
What This Shadow AI Healthcare Wolters Kluwer Trend Means Going Forward
With nearly 1 in 10 providers already using unauthorized AI tools for direct patient care according to the Wolters Kluwer data, health systems face a governance gap that extends beyond administrative risk into direct clinical safety concerns. Given the disparity in policy involvement between administrators and providers, health systems seeking to close this gap may need to engage frontline clinical staff more directly in AI governance development, rather than relying on policies designed primarily by administrative leadership without provider input.
What to Watch Going Forward
As health systems work to formalize AI governance policies, industry observers will likely watch whether organizations succeed in closing the gap between rapid, unauthorized AI adoption and the compliance guidelines needed to ensure only validated, secure tools reach clinical and administrative workflows. Given both surveys’ consistent findings that speed and workflow pressure drive much of this behavior, this shadow AI healthcare Wolters Kluwer trend suggests that simply banning unapproved tools without providing adequate enterprise-ready alternatives may do little to curb the underlying behavior driving their use.
For more healthcare industry updates, insights and news, visit DistilINFO. Click here to subscribe to stay informed.
