The use of artificial intelligence in healthcare is on the rise. While it can transform how healthcare workflow looks, it also poses threats if not regulated properly. Unsupervised AI usage is associated with privacy, accountability, and transparency concerns.
To tackle these issues, healthcare leaders joined hands and formed the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI). It aims to develop guidelines for credible, fair, and transparent health AI systems.
In this article, we cover everything about CHAI and how it plans to be the guiding light of AI in the health industry.
Coalition for Health AI (CHAI): Everything you need to know
CHAI, short for Coalition for Health AI, is a diverse and interdisciplinary group formed in December 2021 to reap the benefits of AI development in healthcare.
It aims to become the trusted solution to increase the credibility of health AI systems. Its core principle is to evaluate, monitor, and report health AI systems throughout their lifecycle and provide transparency to health AI end-users/consumers.
CHAI deploys a four-step approach:
Step 1: Identify
Identify the key areas where AI can revolutionise the healthcare sector. While certain sectors need human interactions and emotions, CHAI’s first step of action includes finding sectors where AI could be a much better alternative.
Step 2: Develop
The next step is to develop a clear distinction between AI health systems’ users, specific case scenarios, and target markets. Likewise, adhere to guiding principles regarding evaluation criteria and development standards, which assist in building client trust.
Step 3: Perform
Further, perform an environmental scan to check the AI performance and provide common definitions and a catalogue of the evaluation criteria. This step ensures high quality and transparency maintenance in all CHAI’s ventures.
Step 4: Guide
Lastly, prepare a stakeholder-driven implementation guide to advance the responsible and transparent use of health AI technologies to be credible. It aims to standardise evaluation, monitoring, and reporting methods through a systematic approach.
The founding members of CHAI
CHAI is founded by some of the most famous and trusted players in the medical and healthcare field. These reputed healthcare institutions and research wings provide all the information and practicality needed for CHAI, boosting it to the best in its business.
Some of the non-profit founding partners are:
- AdventHealth
- Boston Children’s Hospital
- Duke Health
- Health Level Seven International
- ideas42
- Johns Hopkins Medicine
- Kaiser Permanente
- Mass General Brigham
- Mayo Clinic
- MedStar Health
- Mount Sinai Health System
- National Health Council (NHC)
- Providence
- Penn Medicine
- University of California Health System
- University of North Carolina Health
- Sharp HealthCare
- Stanford Medicine
- Vanderbilt University Medical Center
- Yale New Haven Health
The industry partners of CHAI
Industrial partners are companies or organisations that work together in the same industry to achieve common goals. Their collaboration efforts are important in developing, implementing, and improving AI solutions.
The industry partners of CHAI are:
#1 Amazon
Amazon is an ideal industry partner for CHAI as it is a global leader in e-commerce, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. It ensures that the development of AI systems is ethical and responsible.
Through this collaboration, Amazon supports research and efforts to develop AI systems built on ethical considerations, safety, and human welfare.
#2 CVS Health
CVS Health has various retail pharmacies, health clinics, and pharmacy benefit management services, making it a perfect industrial partner with CHAI.
Its role is mainly concerned with how AI could help enhance patient care, optimise operations, and address ethical factors around the use of AI in healthcare.
#3 Google
Google is one of the world’s top technology companies that has significantly invested in AI research, development, and applications across multiple domains.
Notably, through its partnership with CHAI, Google’s efforts have been instrumental in advancing discussions about ethics and safety issues in the AI field. These are central to trust building around any emergent applications and transparency involving all individuals using AI technology.
#4 Microsoft
Microsoft is also involved in various AI research and development. It offers a wide range of AI-based products and services, including Azure AI, Office 365, and Bing.
Microsoft’s collaboration with CHAI has promoted alignment with human values and fairness and tackling risks associated with deploying AI.
How does CHAI plan to bring fairness and transparency in health AI systems?
In 2023, CHAI released its “Blueprint for Trustworthy AI Implementation Guidance and Assurance for Healthcare. CHAI and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), along with AI experts from academic medical centres, healthcare, technology, and other industry sectors, coordinated to draft this blueprint to align health AI standards.
The blueprint highlights key elements of trustworthy AI in healthcare – reliability, testability, usability, and benefits. It focuses on the safety of AI in healthcare.
It also sheds light on the importance of accountability, privacy enhancement, security, and maintenance of AI systems to maintain auditability, minimise harm, and report negative impacts.
To operationalise these targets, the blueprint proposes various ideas:
Setting up Assurance Lab and Advisory Service Infrastructure
The CHAI Blueprint suggests establishing interdependent assurance labs and related consulting services will enable the creation of an ecosystem made up of at least four infrastructure components:
- A common understanding of value
- Registries containing AI tools
- Templates for contractual agreements between data providers and algorithm developers for validation
- Sandbox environments for testing AI tools
Institutionalising Trustworthy AI Systems
The CHAI Blueprint has several prerequisites for institutionalising trustworthy AI systems. These have been included in numerous frameworks, such as the Trustworthy AI Executive Order and the OSTP Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights.
An established set of maturity levels against which health systems can be measured would have a basis when organisational structures and oversight processes are in place.
Energising a Coalition of the Willing
CHAI says there is space between CHAI, NAM, and other healthcare representatives to cooperate. However, a business case must explain the CHAI blueprint to build around a national standard.
It further adds that best practices ought to be codified, along with a code of conduct related to AI and a possible consensus publication in response to public comments.
Final word
Today, it is impossible to ignore the increasing influence of AI in the diverse spheres of life. Of all, health is the area greatly influenced by this technology, where it holds much promise for transformational impact.
CHAI is leading this transformative path. It is dedicated to responsibly, safely, and equitably guiding the growth of healthcare AI. CHAI’s unique mixture of creators and industry partners makes it a guiding star for ethical and fair development within the health applications of AI.
CHAI’s original potential and how it executes its plan is yet to be seen. However, with initiatives like CHAI, the future outlook for AI in healthcare looks brighter.
By Rinkle Dudhani and the AHT team
