My world’s on fire. Yes, we are talking about the historic heat wave this week. But “my world’s on fire” happens to be a lyric from the song All Star, sung by SmashMouth’s Steve Harwell, who sadly died at age 56 on September 4, 2023. The song was featured in the hit animated movie Shrek, so anyone who raised kids in the last 20 years bops along to it just like their kids do. It is the kick-off theme of Shrek because it has an upbeat message for people who feel like outsiders in society. In the One Thoughtful Paragraph, we give a nod to another gentleman who is upbeat about his outsider role in the decision-making about regulating artificial intelligence in the healthcare system.
Other organizations that are getting attention for their upbeat health IT-related news:
- STAT News launched a generative AI tracker to “keep an eye on the real-world impact of generative AI on medicine.” The Generative AI Tracker includes examples of AI programs that health systems and vendors went public with, but the tracker also shows whatever the intrepid reporters at STAT discovered on their own.
- Yale researchers used early pandemic data to develop an algorithm to predict the severity of patients’ experience with COVID, including their length of hospital stay. The team of scientists are making their COVID software publicly available so that others can use it to develop predictive models for other infectious disease outbreaks — like the flu.
- Melissa, a global data provider that specializes in identity and address verification across many industry sectors, announced that it will give access to its address database to electronic health record vendors. The goal is to help providers’ practice management platforms improve the interoperability of patient records by complying with Project US@, an initiative launched by the ONC and the U.S. Postal Service to match the right patient to the right records by checking their mailing address.
And all that glitters is gold; Only shooting stars break the mold. Another clever lyric from Smashmouth’s song All Star, which is not only a twist of Shakespeare’s famous line, it encourages people on the outside of the popular inner circle to be bold and shine on. In this case, the inner circle is the bipartisan U.S. Senate Artificial Intelligence Caucus, whose leaders are being tapped by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to help figure out how to regulate this scary AI thing. Dutifully, the cool political kids are gathering the cooler industry kids (on September 13, 2023 — didn’t you get the invitation?) to help them work out the best approach to regulating AI. Enter our shooting star: U.S. Senate HELP Committee Ranking Member Bill Cassidy, M.D., who released a white paper about the AI state of play and the best approach to regulate AI in the health, education, and labor sectors. And he is asking others who were not invited to the cool kids’ party what they think. Who believes that all of this will end with sensical, non-stifling regulatory action by the federal government? I’m a believer.
