The federal government released a plan to address artificial intelligence (AI) policies in the United States. Healthcare was identified as a top priority for reform, innovation, and workforce development in the document, “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan.”
Healthcare was described as “especially slow to adopt due to a variety of factors, including distrust or lack of understanding of the technology, a complex regulatory landscape, and a lack of clear governance and risk mitigation standards.”
Items specific to healthcare included:
- The creation of testing environments where researchers, startups, and health systems can pilot AI tools in partnership with regulatory agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration.
- The National Institute of Standards and Technology will convene public, private, and academic stakeholders to develop benchmarks for AI’s impact in diagnostics, operations, and administration.
- AI productivity improvements will be measured in areas such as medical imaging, clinical workflow, and population health analytics.
- A new federal hub will examine AI’s impact on healthcare jobs, including hiring trends, wages, and occupational demand.
- A National Secure Data Service portal will expand access to nonsensitive, health-related datasets for AI model development.
- Federally funded researchers will be required to disclose high-quality datasets to support medical AI research.
- Infrastructure upgrades such as expanded data centers and improved grid access may enhance AI processing capacity for health systems and academic medical centers.
- The Homeland Security Department will launch an AI Information Sharing and Analysis Center to help the healthcare and other critical infrastructure sectors defend against AI-driven cyber threats.
To read the document, visit “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan” at whitehouse.gov.
