What it will take to weed out AI bias in healthcare

Artificial intelligence is being used across the healthcare industry with the goal of delivering care more efficiently and improving outcomes for patients. But if health systems and vendors aren't careful, AI has the potential to support biased decision-making and make equities even worse. "Algorithmic bias really is the application of an algorithm that compounds existing inequity," Sarah Awan, equity fellow with CEO Action for Racial Equity and senior manager at PwC, said in a seminar hosted by the Digital Medicine Society and the Consumer Technology Association. "And that might be in socioeconomic status, race and ethnic background, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, etc. So while AI can help identify bias and reduce human bias, it really also has the power for bias at scale in very sensitive applications." Healthcare is behind other industries when it comes to using data analytics, said Milissa Campbell, managing director and health insights lead at NTT DATA Services.