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New Group Aims to Advance Artificial Intelligence in Telehealth

The Partnership for Artificial Intelligence and Automation in Healthcare (PATH) aims to promote AI in several facets of the healthcare industry, including telehealth and mHealth.

Source: ThinkStock

By Eric Wicklund

- The former CEO of the American Telemedicine Association has launched a new group focused on applying artificial intelligence to healthcare – including telehealth.

The Partnership for Artificial Intelligence and Automation in Healthcare (PATH) is co-founded by Jonathan Linkous, who oversaw the ATA from its inception in 1993 until he stepped down in August of 2017, and Mary Ann Liebert, president and CEO of Mary Ann Liebert publishing company.

“PATH supports both public and private initiatives for patients, providers and payers to realize the health outcome benefits of artificial intelligence, automation, medical sensors and robotics,” the group states in a position paper.

“These technologies have already transformed banking, aviation, and entertainment allowing each to grow, provide higher-quality products, lower costs and provide consumers greater choice,” the group’s website notes. “Faced with spiraling costs, increased demands and decreasing resources, healthcare desperately needs to catch up. But innovation alone does not equal adoption and use, especially in healthcare.”

Telehealth and mHealth have seen their fair share of AI and machine-learning applications in recent years, perhaps best exemplified in the rise of IBM’s Watson Health business. mHealth companies and healthcare providers have been particularly interested in applying the technology to remote monitoring programs and devices, particularly for chronic conditions like diabetes.

More recently, AI technology has been showing up in telestroke programs, enabling providers to identify strokes more quickly and begin life-saving treatment, and in telemental health.

PATH has set out five goals to champion AI in healthcare: improve patient outcomes and productivity; reduce government and professional regulatory barriers; align payment policies and incentives; promote partnership in developing ethical applications; and advance public understanding.

Aside from Linkous and Liebert, the organization includes an advisory board composed of Qualcomm Life President Rick Valencia; InTouch Health Founder and President Yulun Wang; Sue Siegel, GE’s Chief Innovation Officer; Steven Klasko, MD, MBA, President and CEO of Thomas Jefferson University And Jefferson Health; and Jay H. Sanders, MD, CEO of The Global Telemedicine Group and an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

The group will host its first event from Sept. 30 through Oct. 3 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC.

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