As the federal government lags in setting regulations for artificial intelligence in healthcare, URAC, a non-profit accreditation organization, is moving forward with its own health AI accreditation program.
Rachel Snyder Good, Strategic Counsel in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice at Epstein Becker Green, shared her insights on the initiative in Inside Health Policy in an article by Christian Robles, titled “URAC Introduces Health AI Accreditation as Federal Regulations Lag Behind.” (Note: the full article is available via subscription.)
URAC plans to roll out its health AI accreditation by the end of this year, collaborating with regulators, health systems, technology companies, and other stakeholders. The organization is seeking applications for the Health Care AI Committee, a group tasked with finalizing accreditation details by March 14. The accreditation process will involve independent reviewers auditing healthcare stakeholders, like AI developers and providers, to ensure compliance with key standards established through a consensus-building process.
Snyder Good emphasized the importance of this private-sector approach, stating, “Particularly with the recent change in Administration, it will be a longtime before we have a comprehensive federal health care AI law in place. We have seen this before where technology outpaces regulation.” She added, “Accreditation, when done correctly, provides a private sector alternative to help health care companies adopt AI tools with confidence in the absence of state and federal law.”
Snyder Good also highlighted that the accreditation initiative could address a significant obstacle to the adoption of health AI tools: a lack of trust within the healthcare industry. She explained, “There is a lot of nervousness in the heavily regulated health care space not just about the harm that can occur if the AI technology isn’t trustworthy but also nervousness about missing out on AI’s potential to significantly improve health care. Accreditation, therefore, is an important tool that provides a framework for industry that allows for the adoption of trustworthy AI within health care.”
