On Jan. 13, Microsoft announced via a press release that organizations across the U.S. healthcare and life sciences industries formed the Artificial Intelligence Industry Innovation Coalition (AI3C). The coalition unites the Brookings Institution, Cleveland Clinic, Duke Health, Intermountain Healthcare, Microsoft, Novant Health, Plug and Play, Providence, UC San Diego, and University of Virginia “with the goal of maximizing technology to provide recommendations, tooling, and best practices for AI in healthcare.”
The release states that “The AI3C board, composed of volunteer senior executives acting as advisors, will work to co-create AI solutions for positive societal and healthcare outcomes, identify and set the AI strategy and vision for a variety of projects, and track the success of AI adoption in the industry. Each member organization has nominated its own AI ambassadors to serve as regional leads and drive programs. All members have an equal voice in the way the coalition operates and is governed.”
Further, “The AI3C intends to apply AI to resolve significant challenges in business such as:
- General economic and industrial challenges – including research transfer, industry standards and funding instruments
- Digital skills and employability – including organizational and cultural challenges, as well as labor policies
- Data privacy – including data access and shared innovation
Overall, the AI3C objectives are to accelerate AI innovation and adoption by:
- Showcasing emerging AI tools
- Gathering industry-specific AI use cases, best practices and research feedback
- Transforming the AI workforce
- Preparing students for careers in AI and data science”
The release explains to achieve the goals listed above, members of the coalition will work on providing a program for responsible AI education and improving skills. Additionally, AI3C will collaborate with the healthcare community through whitepapers, new programs, and social media to make AI more applicable. AI3c will also have quarterly meetings and events.
“The AI3C will provide recommendations and advice on a wide array of AI topics including responsible healthcare innovation, health equity and workforce transformation to reduce clinical fatigue. More details about the coalition’s programs and its impact will be available later this year,” the release adds. “The AI3C follows in the footsteps of the National Coalition for Artificial Intelligence in Financial Services, which was launched in December 2020.”
Ashley Llorens, vice president and managing director, Microsoft Research and Incubations was quoted in the release saying that “Meeting the urgent need for new health technologies requires diverse partners coming together across sectors. With perspectives from AI practitioners, healthcare professionals and the research community, the AI3C can guide collaborative projects that accelerate the translation of frontier technologies from research to solution development, to implementation.”
