Stakeholders Urge White House's AI Office to Include Healthcare

In a letter to the chair and vice-chair of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office (NAIIO), healthcare and technology stakeholders asked that healthcare be included in the scope of its work to advance US artificial intelligence (AI) by adding a healthcare subcommittee to the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC).

The NAIIO was established by the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 to help coordinate the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative. Specifically, the NAIIO serves as the central point of contact for information exchange on activities related to the initiative and provides support to the Select Committee on AI, the senior interagency committee that oversees the initiative, and the NAIAC.

The NAIAC, launched in April, advises the president and the NAIIO on topics related to US AI competitiveness, progress in implementing the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative, and other information pertaining to AI. The NAIAC’s members consist of leaders from academia, civil society, non-profits, and the private sector with AI-relevant expertise. Currently, the NAIAC only has one subcommittee, which focuses on AI and law enforcement.

In the letter sent to the NAIIO, which was shared with HealthITAnalytics via email, stakeholders stated that AI development in healthcare has significant potential to positively impact US AI competitiveness:

“In no area is there greater potential for positive transformation domestically, and to advance U.S. competitiveness and international leadership, than healthcare," the letter states. "Leveraging health data (including social determinants of health [SDOH] and PGHD [patient-generated health data]) with AI tools holds incredible promise for advancing value-based care in research, health administration and operations, population health, practice delivery improvement, and direct clinical care. To realize this potential, the U.S. system must continue to evolve to provide incentives for investments that will support U.S. leadership in health AI.”

The stakeholders recommended that the NAIAC include healthcare in its work by creating a standing healthcare subcommittee, similar to the one created for AI and law enforcement, made up of public and private sector experts on health AI.

“We recommend that this standing subcommittee address issues including research and development incentives, quality assurance and oversight, thoughtful design, access and affordability, ethics and data bias mitigation, linkages to data privacy and security, data interoperability, workforce issues, and education," the letter states. "We write to recommend that you take additional steps to ensure that the NAIAC’s scope and work includes a focus on considerations specific to healthcare.”

The signatories of the letter include AdvaMed, the American Medical Association, Anthem, the Connected Health Initiative, the Consumer Technology Association, the Digital Therapeutics Alliance, the Healthcare Leadership Council, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, the Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance, and Qi-Fense.