| | | Healthcare healthcare AI finds itself in 2025 pregnant with possibilities yet surrounded by pitfalls. Given the precarious excitement of the moment—or is it exciting precarity?—policymakers and healthcare leaders must set directives guiding not only what to do but also when to do it. They’re offered assistance in a paper published in Health Affairs Jan. 22. “The field of artificial intelligence has entered a new cycle of intense opportunity, fueled by advances in deep learning, including generative AI,” write lead author Michael Matheny, MD, MPH, of Vanderbilt and 11 colleagues from 10 organizations in introducing their material. “Applications of recent advances affect many aspects of everyday life, yet nowhere is it more important to use this technology safely, effectively and equitably than in health and healthcare.” The team presents the work as part of an initiative driven by the National Academy of Medicine, “Vital Directions for Health and Healthcare: Priorities for 2025.” The new paper lays out four policy-focused subdiscussions in considerable detail. In each section, the authors press policymakers to pursue a number of action items. Here are excerpts. 1. Ensure the safe, effective and trustworthy use of AI. Federal agencies “should develop policies to incentivize the equitable and fair deployment of AI technologies,” the authors write. “As leaders in healthcare payment innovation, CMS and other relevant agencies should consider expanding reimbursement models to encourage equitable adoption.” More: ‘It is also critical to require or incentivize the inclusion of patients and end users into the entire AI development and implementation life cycle.’
2. Promote the development of an AI-competent workforce.The authors call on policymakers for higher education funding to “consider incentives that support professional societies, accrediting bodies and faculty at medical and allied health professional schools to implement new training requirements and continuous adaptation of curricula to prepare clinicians to leverage AI in patient care.” ‘In addition, policymakers should incentivize healthcare educational organizations to routinely evaluate knowledge and skills to identify those that are becoming redundant as healthcare AI advances.’
3. Support research on AI in health and healthcare.Research investments in the delivery of care can expand the role of AI technologies in precision medicine, the authors state. “Research questions remain,” they add, “regarding how, when and where to leverage AI to tailor treatment based on individual patients’ characteristics, genetics and lifestyle or environmental exposures.” ‘This has broad implications for the concept of ‘standard of care’ and how its definition or quality assessment may need to change to allow for personalized care.’
4. Clarify responsibility and liability in the use of AI.Policymakers “should support and coordinate efforts by professional societies to streamline the responsible adoption of medical AI by clarifying the responsibility and liability landscape for healthcare professionals,” the authors write before proposing three actions to be taken by organizations such as the National Academies, the Federation of State Medical Boards, the American Medical Informatics Association and others: - Provide analyses of the most common legal questions to elucidate what clinicians and hospitals need to know and what uncertainty remains for different uses of AI;
- Promulgate model licensing terms for medical AI that can create clearer liability rules through contract; and
- Set model terms for indemnification or insurance against injuries involving AI.
‘These next steps can ease the responsible adoption of AI to improve patient care.’
The paper is posted in full for free. |
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| | | Nabla is rolling out its ambient AI assistant at Denver Health - Denver Health, Colorado's primary safety-net health system, is deploying Nabla across its entire clinical workforce. In just the first week of system-wide implementation, a record 400 clinicians signed up to use the ambient AI assistant for clinical documentation.
During a successful 8-week pilot, Denver Health clinicians reported the following outcomes, including: ☑️ 40% reduction in note-typing per patient encounter
☑️ 82% of participants feeling less time pressure per visit
☑️ 15-point increase in patient satisfaction scores Read the press release
Assistant or Associate Dean, Health AI Innovation & Strategy - UCLA Health seeks a visionary academic leader to serve as its Assistant or Associate Dean for Health AI Innovation and Strategy and Director for the UCLA Center for AI and SMART Health. This unique position offers the opportunity to shape and drive AI vision and strategy for the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) and ensure translation of innovation in our renowned Health system. This collaborative leader will work with academic leadership, faculty, staff and trainees to harness the power of AI to transform biomedical research, decision and implementation science, and precision health. Learn more and apply at: https://recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF09997 (tenured track)
https://recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF10032 (non-tenured track)
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| | | Buzzworthy developments of the past few days. - When Larry Ellison talks about healthcare AI, people invest. At least, that’s what happened after the Oracle chairman enthused over AI’s potential to cook up vaccines for cancer. Ellison made the comments during a press briefing held at the White House Tuesday. The event was set up, in part, to announce President Trump’s vision for a private $500B AI project—dubbed “Stargate”—spearheaded by Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank. Ellison also mentioned AI’s promise in cancer detection and treatment. The next day, drugmaker Moderna of COVID vaccine fame saw its stock price rise more than 7%, according to Investor’s Business Daily. “Moderna is testing its cancer vaccine in combination with Merck’s Keytruda,” the outlet reported. Trump has suggested the government’s role in Stargate will mainly consist of lowering regulatory hurdles and expanding energy availability to power massive, AI-ready data centers.
- Health insurers wielding AI: Don’t mess with Texans. A bill has been filed in the Lone Star State that would forbid the use of AI to make the call on medical necessity. It would also authorize the Texas Department of Insurance to audit health plans to make sure they’re not breaking the ban. The bill’s author, Republican state senator Charles Schwertner, says the technology “should not be used to make critical, sometimes life-saving decisions regarding a patient’s care. We simply cannot and should not solely rely on algorithms to understand the complexities and unique needs of patients.” Local TV news outfit KXAN has the story.
- Medical fraudsters targeting Medicare: Mess less with CMS. The Center for Program Integrity at the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services has its hands overfull trying to limit criminal robberies of taxpayer dollars. The crooks are both many and crafty. AI could give the center a kind of smart smokebomb for flushing some out of their hidey-holes at scale. The global tech consultancy ICF explains how. “AI cannot—and will not—make the ultimate decision to take action against a provider or facility for alleged Medicare fraud, waste or abuse,” writes ICF senior director Jacob Gray. Instead, AI and predictive analytics “can be a force multiplier,” speeding and fine-tuning investigations by handling the grunt work. “They can comb through unstructured patient files faster, freeing up time for CPI and support staff to pursue more cases without sacrificing the integrity of their investigations.”
- Healthcare AI is making friends one medical specialty at a time. The technology “has the potential to significantly improve equity in gastroenterology by addressing gaps in access to healthcare, early diagnosis and treatment outcomes across diverse populations,” Prateek Sharma, MD, president of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, tells Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News. “We are at a critical juncture.” Read the rest.
- The rise of AI tools for predicting protein structures offers ‘immense potential.’ One of the most exciting avenues of exploration within the domain involves the study of how viruses evolve. “Can AI help predict the next pandemic?” asks HPC Wire. “Can it help us prepare better to manage virus outbreaks?” Here’s hoping. “We want to know if we can anticipate the variation in viruses and forecast new variants,” says computational biologist Debora Marks, PhD, of Harvard. “If we can, that’s going to be extremely important for designing vaccines and therapies.” More here.
- What are you waiting for, physicians and other clinical professionals? The question is directed at those who have yet to begin incorporating AI into their daily practice. It’s gently implied in the words of Robert Bart, MD, chief medical information officer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. AI “will enable you to be more proficient and more efficient,” Bart says in the Pittsburgh Business Times, referring particularly to ambient listening AI. “It will allow you to perform at as high a level as possible.”
- If it’s still January, it’s not too late for 2025 AI predictions. Time magazine has posted a worthy set of five with a full week to spare. “If 2023 was the year of AI fervor, following the late-2022 release of ChatGPT, 2024 was marked by a steady drumbeat of advances as systems got smarter, faster and cheaper to run,” two writers note. “AI also began to reason more deeply and interact via voice and video—trends that AI experts and leaders say will accelerate.” Specific predictions here.
- Jobseekers hoping to launch or advance an AI career in healthcare are in a good place right now. That’s especially true if they’re handy with AI agents, digital twins, health wearables, Cloud engineering or high-level tech strategies. Forbes contributor Sai Balasubramanian, MD, JD, has something positive to say about each of those. “Indeed, 2025 will be a monumental year” for these lines of work, he writes. “Despite a rapidly changing job landscape, the swift growth of technology and AI—especially as they pertain to healthcare—offers numerous potential opportunities for determined job seekers to take advantage of.” Get the rest.
- Recent research in the news:
- Funding news of note:
- From AIin.Healthcare’s news partners:
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