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Digital Health Action Collaborative

Advancing health data and emerging technologies such as AI as a core utilities utility continuously safeguarded, refined, and applied for the common good—a virtual health data trust.

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About the Digital Health Action Collaborative

As one of four action collaboratives under the National Academy of Medicine’s Leadership Consortium, the Digital Health Action Collaborative (DHAC) works to advance the digital infrastructure necessary for continuous improvement and innovation in health, health care, and evidence development.

While health technology emerges and improves at a rapid pace, strategic and equitable integration of new technology into the health system lags behind. The DHAC focuses on identifying, promoting, and encouraging interoperability of new technologies; guiding their entry into the health system as fully integrated digital platforms and tools for optimal health system performance; and promoting strategic sharing, linkage, and use of data produced or captured by these new technologies. 

Co-Chairs

Harvard University

Kenneth D. Mandl, MD, MPH is a Professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Director at Boston Children’s Hospital Computational Health Informatics Program. Recognized for research and teaching, Mandl received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the Clifford A. Barger Award for top mentors at Harvard Medical School. He was advisor to two Directors of the CDC and chairs the Board of Scientific Counselors of the NIH’s National Library of Medicine. Dr. Mandl has been elected to multiple honor societies including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, Society for Pediatric Research, American College of Medical Informatics and American Pediatric Society. Mandl leads two postdoctoral training programs in clinical and informatics research and directs the Population Health Track of the new Masters Degree in Biomedical Informatics at HMS. Mandl is a faculty member in the HMS Center for Biomedical Informatics and in the Division of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT. Through scholarship intersecting epidemiology and informatics, Mandl pioneered use of IT and big data for population health, discovery, patient engagement and care redesign. Mandl leads the transformative SMART Platforms initiative to design the “app store for health” and is principal investigator of the Scalable Collaborative Infrastructure for a Learning Health System across Boston hospitals and nationally. Recognized for research and teaching, Mandl received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the Clifford A. Barger Award for top mentors at Harvard Medical School. He was advisor to two Directors of the CDC and chairs the Board of Scientific Counselors of the NIH’s National Library of Medicine. His clinical training and experience is in pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine. Dr. Mandl has been elected to multiple honor societies including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, Society for Pediatric Research, American College of Medical Informatics and American Pediatric Society.

Impact

Under the guidance of the Leadership Consortium, the DHAC takes the lead on positioning digital health infrastructure as a core utility for the common good.

A seamless digital infrastructure for the protected capture, sharing, analysis, and use of health data and information is required for health system effectiveness, efficiency, equity and continuous learning and improvement. The NAM Digital Health Action Collaborative was established in 2008 for public and private organizations to work together in a trusted neutral venue on cooperative projects of priority to the common good. These projects range from technical reviews and public discussions of key issues to targeted analytics, modeling, and incubating the launch of new capacities. Examples of the issues engaged include artificial intelligence and machine learning, data ownership and control, and standardized multi-level core indicators.

  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
  • Alliance for AI in Healthcare
  • Amazon
  • American Medical Informatics Association
  • Apple
  • Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy
  • Association of American Medical Colleges
  • AstraZenaca
  • Atrium Health
  • Blue Cross Blue Shield
  • CVS Health
  • Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation
  • Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
  • Cerner
  • Digital Medicine Society
  • Duke University
  • Epic
  • Families USA
  • Food and Drug Administration
  • Google
  • HIMSS
  • Harvard University
  • Intel
  • Kaiser Permanente
  • Komodo Health
  • MITRE
  • Mayo Clinic
  • Microsoft
  • National Institutes of Health
  • New York University
  • Northwestern University
  • OCHIN
  • Office of Science and Technology Policy
  • Philips
  • Samsung
  • U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
  • UnitedHealth Group
  • University of California San Francisco
  • Vanderbilt University
  • Walmart
  • Yale University
  • Projects completed, under way, or under consideration by the DHAC include:
    Health Care Artificial Intelligence Code of Conduct: An initiative aimed at providing a guiding framework to ensure that AI algorithms and their application in health, health care, and biomedical science perform accurately, safely, reliably, and ethically in the service of better health for all.
  • Health Professions Forum on AI in Health and Medicine: A forum bringing together health professional leadership, technology developers, and forward-thinking health system leaders to engage in discussions surrounding the transformative landscape of large language models and generative AI in health and medicine within the context of a learning health system.
  • Generative AI in Health, Health Care, and Health Research: A two-day multi- stakeholder workshop in fall 2023 exploring the potential near- and medium-term applications of Generative AI approaches in multiple activities of the health system.

In-person attendance at meetings is by invitation only due to room capacity limitations.

Featured Activity

Health Care Artificial Intelligence Code of Conduct

The NAM Leadership Consortium’s new initiative aims to align & facilitate adoption of an AI Code of Conduct for health, medical care, and health research. Learn more about this multi-phased project to ensure responsible & equitable use of AI in health care.

Learn About the AICC

Publications

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Sep 29, 2022Discussion Paper
Meeting the Moment: Addressing Barriers and Facilitating Clinical Adoption of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Diagnosis
Introduction Clinical diagnosis is essentially a data curation and analysis activity through which clinicians seek to gather and synthesize enough pieces of information about a patient to determine their condition. The art and science of clinical diagnosis dates to ancient times, with the earliest diagnostic practices relying primarily on clinical observations of a patient’s state, coupled with methods of palpation […]
Biomedical ResearchDigital HealthDrugs and DevicesEmerging Science and TechnologyWorkforce and Interprofessionalism
Meeting the Moment: Addressing Barriers and Facilitating Clinical Adoption of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Diagnosis
Jun 27, 2022Discussion Paper
The Promise of Digital Health: Then, Now, and the Future
Digital Health in the 21st Century Over the past several decades, the development and accelerated advancement of digital technology has prompted change across virtually all aspects of human endeavor. The positive and negative effects of these changes have been and will remain the focus of active speculation, including the implications for human health. Application of mechanical and digital recording and […]
Infectious Diseases
The Promise of Digital Health: Then, Now, and the Future
Nov 30, 2020Discussion Paper
Advancing Artificial Intelligence in Health Settings Outside the Hospital and Clinic
The health care ecosystem is witnessing a surge of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technologies and products that can potentially augment care delivery outside of hospital and clinic settings. These tools can be used to conduct remote monitoring, support telehealth visits, or target high-risk populations for more intensive health care interventions. With much of patients’ time spent outside of a hospital or […]
Biomedical ResearchCoverage and AccessDigital HealthDrugs and DevicesEmerging Science and TechnologyHealth Policy and RegulationQuality and Safety
Advancing Artificial Intelligence in Health Settings Outside the Hospital and Clinic
Feb 11, 2015Discussion Paper
Innovation and Best Practices in Health Care Scheduling
Background Patient waits have been a long-standing concern in health care. Waits occur throughout the continuum of care and are built into and budgeted for within day-to-day operations. The status quo is changing, however, as patient experience becomes linked to provider payment, efficiency and service become differentiators between hospitals and providers, and patient expectations evolve. While excellent clinical care remains […]
Coverage and AccessHealth Policy and RegulationPatient and Consumer IssuesQuality and Safety
Innovation and Best Practices in Health Care Scheduling

Contact Information

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