Artificial Intelligence

Preventing discrimination and bias in connection with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care is among the principal current focuses of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and was among the health care directives in the recent Biden Administration Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (Executive Order). Consistent with these priorities, on April 26, 2024, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released an unpublished version of a new final rule under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that aims to broadly address inequity across health care but also requires certain actions of entities covered under Section 1557 around their use of AI in clinical decision-making (Final Rule).

In the latest episode of Health Law Diagnosed – Women Leaders in Health Care, host Bridgette Keller leads a conversation around the emerging role of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care.

Read about AI-focused task forces formed in the House of Representatives and by the governor of Massachusetts in the latest edition of AI: The Washington Report, a joint undertaking of Mintz and ML Strategies covering potential federal legislative, executive, and regulatory activities related to AI.

As we reflect on the flurry of activity in the health care data privacy and security space in 2023 and look ahead to what will continue to be a busy 2024, we are seeing the early stages of federal agency movement to align the regulatory environment with modern health care delivery, cutting-edge technologies, and innovative data-sharing techniques. Some of this work has been done in the form of federal agency guidance in which health care organizations will be looking for additional updates and there are also a handful of pending U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) proposals that call for substantial changes to the HIPAA Privacy Rule.