“The Connected Health Initiative (CHI) welcomes the new AI Action Plan, which reinforces the United States’ commitment to spurring AI innovation and leading the world. The responsible development and adoption of AI is vital to modernizing the U.S. healthcare system and needs to be accelerated,” said Brian Scarpelli, executive director of the Connected Health Initiative. “Healthcare AI governance frameworks should be scalable and assure that an individual’s data is properly protected while also allowing the flow of information and responsible evolution of AI, avoiding undue barriers to data processing and collection.”

CHI supports many of the priorities in the AI Action Plan, which align to our Policy Principles for Artificial Intelligence in Health:

  • Accelerating Adoption of National AI Standards: The plan’s commitment to launching healthcare-specific efforts to speed the development and adoption of national standards for AI systems will bring the clarity and predictability innovative companies need to bring new AI health tools to patients.
  • Risk-based Governance: Reducing regulatory barriers to development and deployment of new tools must be paired with strong, risk-based oversight standards, enabling scaling of harm mitigation to both known and intended use cases while supporting innovation.
  • Research & Development and Workforce: Questions of clinical validation and transparency will need to continue to be explored, and shortages in the healthcare workforce already impact patient care. A range of actions in the plan support funding and incentives for the research and development and workforce training that are needed to realize broader adoption and effectiveness of AI health systems.
  • Secure-by-Design: Prioritizing a “secure-by-design” approach to AI development aligns with CHI’s Thoughtful Design principle calling for AI systems to be built using real-world workflows, human-centered design and usability principles, and end-user needs from the earliest stages.

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