FDA chief sees big things for AI in healthcare

At AcademyHealth's 2018 Health Datapalooza on Thursday, the US Food and Drug Administration offered a vote of confidence for artificial intelligence in healthcare, promising more refined strategies for regulation, touting its tech incubator for AI innovation, and announcing a new machine learning partnership with Harvard. "We're implementing a new approach to the review of artificial intelligence," FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said. As one example, he pointed to the agency's approval earlier this year of a new clinical decision support software that uses AI algorithms to help alert neurovascular specialists of brain deterioration faster than existing technologies. "AI holds enormous promise for the future of medicine, and we're actively developing a new regulatory framework to promote innovation in this space and support the use of AI-based technologies," Gottlieb said. "So, as we apply our Pre-Cert program -- where we focus on a firm's underlying quality -- we'll account for one of the greatest benefits of machine learning -- that it can continue to learn and improve as it is used."