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Providers, Payers Sign Pledge for Ethical, Responsible AI in Healthcare
Over 25 health systems and payers have made voluntary commitments to ensure that health AI leads to fair, appropriate, valid, effective, and safe outcomes.
At the 2023 Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) Annual Meeting, 28 health systems and payers signed a pledge to advance the ethical and responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare.
The pledge represents a voluntary commitment to align healthcare industry efforts around AI with the fair, appropriate, valid, effective, and safe (FAVES) AI principles outlined in the United States Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability: Certification Program Updates, Algorithm Transparency, and Information Sharing (HTI-1) rule.
Further, each organization has committed to developing AI tools that advance health equity, expand healthcare access and affordability, and improve patient outcomes. By enhancing care coordination, reducing clinician burnout, and improving patient experience, these solutions aim to optimize healthcare delivery.
Those who signed the pledge are also obligated to deploy trust mechanisms designed to inform users when content is AI-generated and not reviewed by a human; adhere to a risk management framework that tracks AI applications to measure and address potential harms; and undertake the swift, but responsible research and development of health AI.
These commitments are also in line with President Biden’s recent executive order aimed at guiding the safe, secure, and trustworthy implementation of AI across US industries, including healthcare. A White House blog post announcing the pledge notes that “the Administration is pulling every lever it has to advance responsible AI in health-related fields. We cannot achieve the bold vision the President has laid out for the country with U.S. government action, alone.”
Previous efforts to ensure trustworthy AI deployment have focused on technology developers, or the “supply side” of these tools, whereas this effort engages stakeholders from the “demand side,” who develop and utilize the technologies.
The 28 providers and payers who have signed the pledge are: Allina Health, Bassett Healthcare Network, Boston Children’s Hospital, Curai Health, CVS Health, Devoted Health, Duke Health, Emory Healthcare, Endeavor Health, Fairview Health Systems, Geisinger, Hackensack Meridian, HealthFirst (Florida), Houston Methodist, John Muir Health, Keck Medicine, Main Line Health, Mass General Brigham, Medical University of South Carolina Health, Oscar, OSF HealthCare, Premera Blue Cross, Rush University System for Health, Sanford Health, Tufts Medicine, UC San Diego Health, UC Davis Health, and WellSpan Health.
In July, President Biden also secured voluntary commitments from 15 AI companies to advance the development of responsible health AI.
This announcement is part of a larger push for increased AI regulation and oversight in the healthcare industry.
Last month, the American Medical Association (AMA) issued a set of seven principles designed to bolster the responsible development, deployment, and use of health AI. The guidelines focus on mitigating risks to patients and clinicians while maximizing the benefits that AI could provide.
The principles build on existing AMA efforts to drive health AI policy and aim to support the establishment of a national governance framework for the technology.
