AMA Passes Augmented Intelligence Policy

Friday, June 22, 2018

The American Medical Association (AMA) has passed a policy that addresses use of augmented intelligence (AI) in the healthcare industry—a first for the organization. The AMA released a statement discussing the policy on June 14, following the association’s annual meeting.

“As technology continues to advance and evolve, we have a unique opportunity to ensure that augmented intelligence is used to benefit patients, physicians, and the broad health care community,” said Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, AMA board member, in the statement. Ehrenfeld also noted that while the integration of AI with current healthcare delivery methods holds great promise, “we must forthrightly address challenges in the design, evaluation and implementation as this technology is increasingly integrated into physician’s delivery of care to patients.”

According to the statement, the AMA will:

Leverage ongoing engagement in digital health to set priorities for AI in healthcare
Identify opportunities to integrate physician perspectives into the development, design, validation, and implementation of healthcare AI
Promote the development of “thoughtfully designed, high-quality, clinically validated health care AI”
Encourage education for patients, physicians, medical students, and other healthcare professionals on both the benefits and limitations of AI in healthcare
Explore the potential legal implications of AI in healthcare

“To reap the benefits for patient care, physicians must have the skills to work comfortably with health care AI,” Ehrenfeld said. “Just as working effectively with EHRs [electronic health records] is now part of training for medical students and residents, educating physicians to work effectively with AI systems, or more narrowly, the AI algorithms that can inform clinical care decisions, will be critical to the future of AI in health care.”

Sarah Sheber is assistant editor/web editor at Journal of AHIMA.

Tags: technology, health industry