The American Medical Association (AMA) has created a Center for Digital Health and AI that it hopes will pave the way for thought leadership and policy on the technology.
The AMA has long advocated that artificial intelligence in healthcare is augmentative and not able to replace physicians. The center will also help the group avoid becoming irrelevant in the discussion of AI and keep regulations physician-friendly.
The nation’s largest physician association wields significant power in Washington, D.C., and helps decide what services and technologies get paid for in the industry.
The AMA is late to emerge on the thought leadership scene for AI. Other groups such as healthcare accreditor URAC, the Consumer Technology Association, the Coalition for Health AI, the Health AI Partnership and the Digital Medicine Society have already released AI guidance for the industry.
The physician group says other organizations lack a physician-first outlook on the tech and are led by vendors. It also says it will address issues overlooked by other organizations, such as how the tools will operate day-to-day for clinicians.
The Center for Digital Health and AI will address four areas: policy and regulatory leadership, clinical workflow integration, education and training, and collaboration. John Whyte, M.D., CEO of the AMA as of July 1, told Fierce Healthcare that the center will explore topics such as data transparency, ethical disclosures to patients, financial disclosures, patient outcomes and liability.
Whyte said the center should engage in discussions about software as a medical device, what the feedback loop should be if models err and interoperability with the electronic medical record.
Whyte expressed the need to promote innovation in AI by not overregulating. He is particularly interested in the idea of benchmarks for the technology, which he differentiated from rules, regulations or standards. He said they could address the questions: "How do we think [of] the whole ecosystem? What do we want from these tools, and how should they perform?"
The AMA also hopes the center can build physicians’ trust in AI by giving additional insight into how the models work. “I think what clinicians want to know, and this is the big issue, is trust,” Whyte said. “How do they know they can trust this tool? So that's what they want to see.”
In a survey of clinicians, the AMA found that two-thirds of physicians are using AI. Whyte suspects it takes the form of administrative assistance like ambient scribes and claims processing. He thinks these tools are just scratching the surface of the potential of AI.
“This is a huge initiative of the AMA, and this is the future,” Whyte said. “Honestly, I think the aperture is closing in terms of the [ability for] AMA to lead this. We need to get in this now.”
The AMA will be hiring someone to lead the Center of Digital Health and AI who will significantly shape the direction of the organization, Whyte said. The new leader will also hire out a staff for the center, which Whyte said will be active in producing guidance documents and hosting events.
Though Whyte decried the over-involvement of tech companies in other standard-setting organizations, he clarified that he wants tech at the table for AMA discussions about AI. He said it might even be preferable if the leader of the center has a tech background.