Support policies that will leverage digital health and artificial intelligence to improve patient care and reduce administrative burdens on physicians and their care teams. Digital health should be used appropriately to enhance patients’ health.
Why Action is Needed
Digital health tools have the potential to enhance access to care and improve health outcomes; however, they also have unintended consequences that can worsen various aspects of health and health care. For example, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies can exacerbate health care disparities if not appropriately developed and monitored. Digital health must be developed and used to improve the quality of care, increase efficiency, and prevent medical errors. Additionally, insufficient privacy and security protections for personal health information can erode patient trust and contribute to patients withholding important health information from their physicians, which can have negative clinical consequences for patients. Furthermore, cyberthreats such as ransomware have been increasing in health care, with debilitating effects on health care operations.
ACP’s Position and Advocacy Efforts
Digital health, including emerging technologies such as AI, should support and enhance equitable, high-value patient care and improve the patient-physician relationship. ACP strongly supports policies that aim to leverage digital health to improve shared clinical decision-making at the point of care and support physicians in sharing practical and useful information effectively and securely with other health care professionals and patients.
Call to Action
- Support legislation to establish the nation’s first comprehensive federal consumer data privacy framework and strengthen our country’s cyber resilience to prevent and mitigate cyber threats.
- Support legislation and rulemaking that would streamline and promote the exchange of electronic health information, including policies related to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and information blocking.
- Support policies that would bolster the appropriate and equitable use of AI to enhance health care delivery.