“The Department of Veterans Affairs is closer to expanding its use of artificial intelligence and developing novel use cases.”
“In looking back on the early stages of the VA’s newly launched artificial intelligence program, the department’s Director of AI Gil Alterovitz noted ongoing questions about how to best leverage AI data sets for secondary uses…”
“Some of the most pressing concerns the VA’s AI program has encountered include questions of how to best apply curated data sets to newfound use cases, as well as how to properly navigate consent of use for proprietary medical data.”
“Considering the specificity of use cases, particularly for advanced medical diagnostics and predictive analytics, Alterovitz has proposed releasing broader ecosystems of data sets that can be chosen and applied depending on the demands of specific AI projects.”
“’There’s a lot to think about data sets and how they work together. Rather than release one data set, consider releasing an ecosystem of data sets that are related,’ he said. ‘Imagine, for example, someone is searching for a trial you have information about. Consider the patient looking for the trial, the physician, the demographics, pieces of information about the trial itself, where it’s located. Having all that put together makes for an efficient use case and allows us to better work together.’”
“Alterovitz also discussed the value of combining structured and unstructured data sets in AI projects, a methodology that Veterans Affairs has found to provide stronger results than using structured data alone…”
“Beyond refining and expanding these data applications methodologies, the VA also appears attentive to how to best leverage proprietary medical data while protecting personally identifying information.”
“The solution appears to lie in creating synthetic data sets that mimic the statistical parameters and overall metrics of a given data set while obscuring the particularities of the original data set it was sourced from…” Read the full article here.
Source: VA Looking to Expand Usage of Artificial Intelligence Data – By Adam Patterson, March 27, 2020. GovernmentCIO.
