Virtual Employees and HHS's AI Strategic Plan

The AI Employees are Coming

This week, OpenAI announced “Operator" – a tool enabling AI to navigate websites and interact with browsers like a human user. While currently limited to their $200/month tier and labeled as a "research preview," this development marks another step towards broader AI use-cases in various industries.

Following Anthropic's computer-use functionality release in October 2024 and Google Gemini's December announcement, we're witnessing the dawn of virtual agents capable of performing complex, multi-step computer tasks. These developments signal a clear industry push toward AI systems that can mirror human employee functions.

From a healthcare perspective, these tools are enormously enticing for a healthcare workforce that is highly labor dependent. Scheduling, basic EHR data entry, document review, etc. are all services that could benefit from increased automation and potential standardization. It's easy to see the use cases for back-office administrative tasks and highly curated patient facing functions with a tool that can interface with a computer and mirror a humans clicks.

As presented, none of these tools seem HIPAA compliant, and therefore wouldn’t be cleared to access any EHR's via a browser, but given Microsoft's partnership with Open AI for its copilot service and the encryption and security of Microsoft's environment, it's not hard to believe that that will be far around the corner.

I’d recommend everyone check out tech journalist Casey Newtons great writeup on OpenAI's Operator tool and its significant limitations — though he acknowledges the potential under the surface. As with many healthcare technology announcements, there’s reason to be skeptical. While there’s been steady progress in various AI functionalities across many consumer-facing technologies, nothing seems to justify the significant hype and financial investment given to the space.

HHS Releases AI Strategic Plan

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released a document outlining their “AI Strategic Plan”, providing the first comprehensive federal roadmap for how artificial intelligence could be used across the entire U.S. healthcare system. You can read a full copy here.

Here are the four key takeaways:

First, it acknowledges that AI in healthcare is no longer just futuristic technology - it's already here and rapidly expanding. HHS is taking a proactive stance by creating guidelines now, rather than trying to catch up later. The plan covers both current AI applications, like medical imaging analysis, and prepares for emerging ones like AI-assisted drug discovery.

Second, it takes a balanced approach to AI adoption. While enthusiastic about AI's potential to improve healthcare - like accelerating research, reducing administrative burdens, and expanding access to care - the plan also addresses risks like bias, privacy concerns, and patient safety.

Third, it emphasizes health equity and accessibility. A major focus is ensuring AI doesn't just benefit wealthy health systems but is available to underserved communities, rural areas, and smaller healthcare providers. The plan includes specific measures to prevent AI from worsening existing healthcare disparities.

Fourth, it sets up practical frameworks for implementation. Rather than just stating goals, the plan outlines specific actions across different domains - from updating regulations to workforce training to cybersecurity. It creates new oversight structures while giving healthcare organizations flexibility in how they adopt AI.

So why does this matter? While this plan has no actual teeth or mechanism for enforcement, it does give us some insight into a few things:

• Signals HHS's priorities and intentions around AI in healthcare

• Provides a roadmap for future regulations and policies that WILL have teeth

• Gives organizations voluntary guidelines they can follow

• Creates a framework for how different parts of HHS will approach AI governance

We’ll have to see what affect any of this will have given the pending nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS secretary and the recent rescinding of the Biden AI executive order.

That’s it for now. We’ll catch up again next week.

-Patrick

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