HHS releases strategic plan to make AI “a practical layer of value” for department

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has published a new strategic plan to invest in artificial intelligence as a tool for innovation and efficiency. The strategy lays out the Department’s vision for a unified, coordinated approach to infusing AI throughout the ecosystem, built upon principles of privacy, security, evidence, and public trust. 

“AI is a tool to catalyze progress,” said HHS Acting Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer Clark Minor in a press release. “This Strategy is about harnessing AI to empower our workforce and drive innovation across the Department.” 

Positioned as a first step toward outlining a cohesive vision for HHS’s multitudinous and varied subdivisions, the 21-page document details five guiding pillars for the next phase of AI maturity, including: 

• Ensuring governance and risk management to build and maintain public trust 
• Designing infrastructure and platforms around user needs 
• Promoting workforce development and burden reductions to improve efficiency 
• Fostering health research and reproducibility via gold-standard science 
• Modernizing care and public health delivery to improve outcomes 

The roadmap comes at a pivotal moment in the AI maturity curve, where healthcare organizations of every description are rapidly adopting new capabilities. HHS is among them, with 271 active or planned AI implementations in Fiscal Year 2024 – and projections that those numbers will have increased by approximately 70% in 2025, the document says.  

The next phase of adoption will prioritize high-quality, trustworthy capabilities that have a meaningful impact on departmental activities, starting with establishing a strong foundation of governance and continuing through efforts to create user-centered platforms that reduce inefficiencies and make the most of what’s left of the federal workforce.   

Here are the highlights from each of the AI pillars. 

Ensuring governance and risk management for public trust

 “The Department recognizes that good governance (clear policies, oversight mechanisms, and stakeholder engagement) is essential to harness AI effectively while managing its potential risks,” the document says, which is why HHS is instituting an AI Governance Board to unify AI efforts across agencies and ensure all activities are compliant with legal requirements.    

Strategic goals around governance include establishing standardized risk assessments and monitoring procedures, maintaining an AI use case inventory, and publishing plain-language information on AI activities when appropriate.   

HHS has previously embraced governance and risk assessment principles from the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, and will continue to work with NIST and other sources to guide governance activities.  

Designing AI platforms around user needs

HHS seeks to develop a common, standardized, “practical layer of value” that every division across the Department can use. 

“The idea is to develop a common suite of secure computing resources, scalable data repositories, model hosting services, evaluation testbeds, and orchestration tools for AI, so that individual teams do not have to reinvent the wheel for each new AI project. By building this OneHHS AI-integrated Commons, the Department will ensure that new AI solutions can be developed, tested, and deployed rapidly, with the ability to operate in different environments and across different systems.” 

The Commons will be developed around FAIR principles to ensure data is accessible, reliable, and reusable for enhanced efficiency. 

As part of the ongoing effort to streamline and accelerate AI adoption, HHS is currently finalizing policies and directives around data infrastructure modernization, data ownership, standardization and reuse of data, and issues and data sharing.  

Promoting workforce development and efficiency

Similar to the rest of the healthcare industry, HHS’s vision for AI is to support “an AI-ready workforce where employees understand how to leverage AI in their roles and are supported by secure, approved AI assistants or ‘copilots’ in their day-to-day tasks,” the roadmap says.  

“Ultimately, HHS envisions a work environment where AI is seamlessly integrated into operations, augmenting human capabilities, increasing productivity, and improving job satisfaction, all while maintaining the high standards of quality, accuracy, and accountability that HHS’s mission demands.” 

HHS will work to establish role-based AI training pathways, create educational and assistance resources for common AI-related challenges, and develop tracking techniques to monitor performance, quality, and security metrics. 

Fostering health research and promoting gold-standard science

HHS will consider ways to leverage AI in a variety of scientific research and development initiatives, including drug development, clinical trials, and therapeutic approvals. The Department will work toward promoting open data and models when appropriate, and create reusable, standardized pipelines, when feasible, to speed up the R&D process. 

“Achieving this will involve infusing Gold Standard Science principles (e.g., reproducibility of results, transparency of methods, and unbiased peer review) into every stage of AI-augmented research, from initial discovery through testing and regulatory approval. In practical terms, this means that whether AI is being used for drug development and discovery, medical diagnostics, therapeutic development, or improving clinical trials, the approach will be scientifically rigorous and openly accountable,” the document states.” 

Modernizing care delivery and public health infrastructure

Last but not least, HHS plans to leverage AI to deliver measurable improvements in population health and individual outcomes. 

“Importantly, AI will augment clinicians, caseworkers, and public health professionals, serving as a supportive tool that enhances human decision-making and efficiency without compromising the essential human touch (i.e., to build trust and to validate use of the tool) in health care and human services delivery,” the plan says.   

Strategic goals include using AI to identify high-priority public health issues, such as common chronic conditions, that could be addressed with the aid of AI-enabled predictive analytics and patient engagement tools, as well as using AI to inform broad decision-making around health initiatives. 

HHS will monitor the impact of these activities through measurable improvements in key health metrics, such as A1C reduction or reduced acute care utilization, and will work with external partners across the care continuum to bring these improvements to the broadest possible populations. 

  “AI has the potential to revolutionize health care and human services, and HHS is leading that paradigm shift,” said Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O’Neill. “By guiding innovation toward patient-focused outcomes, this Administration has the potential to deliver historic wins for the public—wins that lead to longer, healthier lives.” 

Jennifer Bresnick is a journalist and freelance content creator with a decade of experience in the health IT industry.  Her work has focused on leveraging innovative technology tools to create value, improve health equity, and achieve the promises of the learning health system.  She can be reached at [email protected].