NHS England is set to pilot a new framework, which will help assess the impact of medical artificial intelligence (AI).
The Ada Lovelace Institute has designed and published a new proposal for the use of algorithmic impact assessments (AIAs), which will be used to ‘maximise the benefits’ and ‘mitigate the harms’ of AI technologies in healthcare.
Its aim is to help ensure researchers and companies can identify and address ‘potential risks, such as algorithmic bias’, before accessing patient data.
By trialling the process, the Institute says that NHS England will be the ‘first health system in the world’ to use this new ethical approach for the use of AI.
The NHS will trial the assessment through the NHS AI Lab, with the framework tested across a number of initiatives and also used as part of the data access process for the National Covid-19 Chest Imaging Database (NCCID) – a central database of medical images – and the proposed National Medical Imaging Platform (NMIP), which will expand on the NCCID and enable the training and testing of a wider range of AI systems.
Octavia Reeve, Interim Lead, Ada Lovelace Institute, said: “Algorithmic impact assessments have the potential to create greater accountability for the design and deployment of AI systems in healthcare, which can in turn build public trust in the use of these systems, mitigate risks of harm to people and groups, and maximise their potential for benefit.
“We hope that this research will generate further considerations for the use of AIAs in other public and private-sector contexts.”
Brhmie Balaram, Head of AI Research and Ethics at the NHS AI Lab, also commented: “Building trust in the use of AI technologies for screening and diagnosis is fundamental if the NHS is to realise the benefits of AI. Through this pilot, we hope to demonstrate the value of supporting developers to meaningfully engage with patients and healthcare professionals much earlier in the process of bringing an AI system to market.
“The algorithmic impact assessment will prompt developers to explore and address the legal, social and ethical implications of their proposed AI systems as a condition of accessing NHS data. We anticipate that this will lead to improvements in AI systems and assure patients that their data is being used responsibly and for the public good.”
