The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are teaming up to launch the first intergovernmental Health AI Laboratory (HAIL), which will test healthcare-related applications of AI tech in a virtual lab environment.
VA Undersecretary for Health Shereef Elnahal announced the news during the Veterans Health Administration Innovation Experience conference last week in Chicago. Elnahal said the lab will not only help Federal agencies but also the private sector to be able to test AI applications to ensure they’re safe for veterans and other patients.
“The reason we are the ones collaborating with FDA on this really important Health AI Lab is because they recognize our innovation potential,” Elnahal said during his Oct. 30 speech – which the VA shared with MeriTalk. “They saw our potential to do this work, and they are selecting us as their main clinical partner in assessing the adherence to trustworthy AI principles for anyone who wants to test their interventions.”
Elnahal said the two agencies are trying to create a lab that “can test anything from ambient listening to applications in clinical diagnostic testing.” For example, he said they already have technology that is helping to identify precancerous and cancerous lesions during colonoscopies.
“By partnering with the FDA, we can be on first improving this concept where you can really test in an agile way whether applications of AI in healthcare adhere to trustworthy AI principles and most importantly, whether they work and whether they’re safe,” Elnahal explained.
The VA official pointed to President Biden’s October 2023 AI executive order, which he said helped to outline the boundaries and values of “how we’re going to apply AI.”
As the first intergovernmental Health AI Lab, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said that “HAIL can be a blueprint for industry evaluation of these technologies.”
“This collaboration between the FDA and the VA can act as a guidepost to help us work towards a world in which decisions guided by AI systems use the best practices in testing, deployment, and evaluation,” Califf said.
“In this way, we can maximize innovation in health care while helping the clinical information technology and scientific community develop the tools they need to ensure that the AI-enabled healthcare products they develop and the ones they use are safe and effective,” he added.
Elnahal said that the VA and FDA will have more information on HAIL “in the next six months or so,” including how organizations can partner with the lab to offer new AI-based solutions.
