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The Race to Regulate the Power of AI in Healthcare
AI Healthcare Guardrails Loom from Congress.
Josiah Simons
December 05, 2023
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The Story: Artificial intelligence is already helping many doctors, nurses, and pharmacists do their jobs more efficiently across the United States. Despite this, public skepticism of AI persists as both patients and members of Congress are wary of the tech. And Congress is seriously considering doing something about it as AI regulation looms in Washington.
In a recent congressional hearing, California democratic representative Anna Eshoo inquired about what AI implementation in healthcare looks like in practice. Michael Schlosser, the senior vice president of care transformation and innovation at HCA Healthcare, explained to the congresswoman that AI will allow doctors and nurses to spend less time doing paperwork and more time with patients. He said that doctors and nurses are “seeing upwards of 20 to 30 percent of their time returned to them.”
Peter Shen, the North American head of digital health at Siemens Healthineers, believes that AI companions in hospitals and clinics will improve the care available for patients. In an interview with The Hill’s Jessi Turnure, Shen explained that “using AI as a companion to clinicians will ultimately improve patient outcomes, from earlier detection of a disease to better treatment options.”
AI models in healthcare have their skeptics, however. Concerns have arisen that AI tools need more patient information before they can effectively train and improve the models. And according to the Hill’s Turnure, sometimes that data is not protected by HIPAA.
Expert Take: Kevin Hickey, VP of Architecture at Benefitfocus, a Voya Company, worries that Congress can’t possibly keep up-to-date on AI technology because it is evolving so quickly. He says:
“I think the biggest policy concerns in general is just the rapid growth and the rapid amount of change in AI. It’s moving faster than anybody can really conceive of, and Congress doesn’t tend to be on the cutting edge of technology.”
Hickey thinks Biden’s recent executive order is a step in the right direction: “I think that at least getting a process underway to start exploring [AI regulation in the healthcare industry] will not only give AI companies a little bit of insight into the way the government is thinking about this but also start to give us opportunities to help shape those regulations…”
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