The HHS has released a strategic plan that lays out the agency’s road map for overseeing artificial intelligence in the healthcare sector.
The plan — which covers AI in medical research, products like drugs and devices, healthcare delivery, social services and public health — comes as AI has become an enticing emerging technology for healthcare executives looking to stretch the industry’s often-beleaguered workforce.
AI offers a lot of opportunities for the sector, like the potential to automate administrative work and reduce costs in the nation’s increasingly expensive healthcare system, the HHS said.
But vetting the tools can be a challenging task for healthcare organizations, and the dangers that might arise from inaccurate or biased AI could pose serious risk to patients.
The framework’s main objective is to establish a safe, coordinated public-private approach to improve quality and accessibility of healthcare services, the HHS said Friday.
The report is broken down into four goals: accelerating AI innovation and adoption, promoting trustworthy development and ethical use, pushing for equitable access to AI technologies and building a healthcare workforce that can effectively use and develop AI tools.
“At HHS, we are optimistic about the transformational potential of AI,” Deputy Secretary Andrea Palm said in a statement. “However, our optimism is tempered with a deep sense of responsibility. We need to ensure that Americans are safeguarded from risks. Deployment and adoption of AI should benefit the American people, and we must hold stakeholders across the ecosystem accountable to achieve this goal.”
Several of the HHS’ goals for healthcare delivery focus on safe deployment. The agency plans to support research into best practices for AI implementation, as well as provide guidelines on how to test and pilot tools before they’re fully rolled out.
The HHS also wants to offer additional guidance on how organizations should follow privacy and security rules, like HIPAA, including when they need to get patient consent before using their data for AI tools.
Additionally, the agency aims to set up regional technical assistance centers through grants or cooperative agreements that can help under-resourced healthcare organizations adopt AI tools — a concern for experts who say an emerging digital divide between which providers can access AI could create new disparities.
Cybersecurity is another focus of the HHS’ strategic plan. Cyberattacks against the sector are on the rise, and the advent of AI could bring new ways to target the sector, according to the HHS. For example, generative AI tools could help cybercriminals craft more convincing phishing emails.
Under the plan, the agency wants to boost the number of cybersecurity personnel in healthcare roles, including through sector-specific training for leaders working outside cyber teams. In the long term, the HHS plans to integrate cyber requirements into its grants, contracts and cooperative agreements.
The agency also wants to create guidelines on how to continue operations after an AI system is compromised.
The HHS’ strategic AI plan comes as the department has increased its focus on AI deployment in healthcare, including by restructuring its technology functions last summer.
But the future of AI policy under President-elect Donald Trump is unclear. Trump has previously said he would repeal a sweeping executive order on AI issued in 2023 by President Joe Biden.
He’s also signaled plans to cut the federal workforce that could affect AI talent, said Mark Dredze, interim deputy director for the Johns Hopkins University Data Science and AI Institute, during a webinar last month.
“When you push for these types of changes, the first people who leave the federal government are the people who get jobs elsewhere,” he said. “And AI is a super competitive space right now. If you have AI expertise, you can probably leave your government job and find something else.”
