Verma Urged By Senators To Investigate Racial Bias In Health Care Tools Based On Artificial Intelligence
Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in their letter to CMS Chief Seema Verma cited a recent study that revealed how an algorithm widely used by hospitals to determine who needs follow-up care misclassified black patients as being less sick than their equally ill white counterparts.
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Senators Urge Medicare To Prevent Bias In AI Tools Used In Health Care
Two Senate Democrats are challenging Medicare’s top official to investigate how health care tools based on artificial intelligence may reflect the flaws and biases of the people who develop them — and perpetuate racial biases. “As algorithms play an increasingly prevalent role in the U.S. health care system, we urge CMS to consider the risk for algorithmic bias and its potential impact on health disparities outcomes,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), a presidential candidate, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote in a letter to Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The letter was released Tuesday. (Cooney, 12/3)
In other health care and technology news —
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Mayo Clinic Taps Boston Health Tech Leader To Guide Data Strategy
On the heels of forming a new partnership with Google (GOOGL), Mayo Clinic announced it has hired Dr. John Halamka — a Harvard professor and hospital IT veteran — to guide its efforts to apply artificial intelligence to vast stores of data from patients and devices. Halamka will leave Beth Israel Lahey Health in Boston to become president of the Mayo Clinic platform, a unified data repository the Minnesota-based health system is creating to develop new analytics capabilities and digital services. His appointment will take effect Jan. 1. (Ross, 12/3)
