Over the past decade, there's been no doubt that AI is positively impacting a number of industries, with medicine and healthcare being no exception. The use of AI and machine learning is already transforming many areas of the healthcare industry, ranging from patient-facing and customer service activities to improvements in overall care, diagnosis, and treatment. With the global pandemic being front-and-center in the minds of healthcare workers, pharmaceutical companies, and life sciences organizations around the world, AI has been applied to help physicians evaluate COVID-19-associated prognosis and needs. In particular, the US federal government has focused on AI in a variety of ways to address pressing needs. The Department of Veterans Affairs, a US Federal agency that provides healthcare services to eligible military veterans, and is the largest integrated health care system in the United States, is adopting AI to help address the wide ranging impacts of the global pandemic on the lives of patients and their families.

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced July 10 the appointment of Gil Alterovitz, PhD, as its first director of artificial intelligence, a position that will be based in the VA's Office of Research and Development. He has already launched a "sprint" to find partner organizations to apply AI technology to the VA's data. More articles about AI: 6 hospital applications for machine learning: algorithms to predict patient violence, HIV risk & more Viewpoint: The AI revolution will leave us'struggling to understand' Michigan Medicine, Atomwise launch research collaboration for AI-driven drug discovery