“The Department of Health and Human Services is investigating sources of algorithmic bias as part of its effort to ensure health equity by design, according to Secretary Xavier Becerra.”
“Becerra tasked the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT with the research given its work with vendors of electronic health records, which are increasingly the source of data used to train and develop algorithms.”
“ONC has found algorithms developed by, say, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, might not apply to hospitals in San Juan, Puerto Rico, as the Biden administration prioritizes more equitable health outcomes nationally, according to the HHS secretary.”
“’As part of the effort, I’ve asked ONC to take a deep look at algorithmic bias and its implications for health equity to ensure that all Americans get the benefits that modern analytic technologies can provide,’ Becerra said, during the ONC 2022 Annual Meeting on Wednesday.”
“ONC has also begun working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on what’s being informally called its “north star architecture,” a more cloud-oriented environment to support the federated public health infrastructure across the U.S. The north star architecture is part of the CDC’s Public Health Data Modernization Initiative and includes a collaborative governance model co-chaired by both agencies and including state, local, tribal and territorial public health agencies.”
“For ONC’s part, it will release more use case-specific data as part of its U.S. Core Data for Interoperability+ (USCDI+) initiative to create a nationwide public health data model…” Read the full article here.
Source: HHS IT coordinator researching algorithmic bias and implications for health equity – By Dave Nyczepir, April 13, 2022. FedScoop.
