Mario Aguilar covers technology in health care, including artificial intelligence, virtual reality, wearable devices, telehealth, and digital therapeutics. His stories explore how tech is changing the practice of health care and the business and policy challenges to realizing tech’s promise. He’s also the co-author of the free, twice weekly STAT Health Tech newsletter. You can reach Mario on Signal at mariojoze.13.
In December, the federal health department asked for feedback on how to boost the use of artificial intelligence for clinical care. Health tech companies were not shy about suggesting extremely specific proposals that would benefit their businesses.
The request for information is part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ effort to implement President Trump’s directives encouraging greater adoption of AI and lighter regulation of the technology. The administration has already moved to scale back transparency requirements for AI built into electronic health record software and to lessen Food and Drug Administration regulation of AI tools that help doctors make clinical decisions. Under Trump, the Medicare innovation center has pushed forward an experiment intended to promote AI-based care and another aimed at using AI to curb wasteful spending.
At the time of publication, just a fraction of the 7,300 comments submitted to the health department have been posted to the docket. Still, they offer a comprehensive industry wishlist for AI, including reforms to health data privacy rules to account for AI training and calls for reliable AI reimbursement.
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