A new UNC initiative aims to bring AI tools to rural and low-resource health care clinics
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A new initiative backed by both UNC Health and Duke Health aims to help rural hospitals and clinics navigate the growing number of AI tools being used in health care.
Why it matters: Hospital networks across the country are investing heavily into AI tools, but hospitals, medical offices and clinics in rural areas and lower-income communities do not always have the resources to use them or ensure their safety.
Driving the news: That is where university leaders hope the North Carolina Collaborative Health AI Network (or NC CHAIN) can be effective.
- The initiative, funded with a $4.4 million grant from The Duke Endowment, hopes to share best practices learned at UNC or Duke and help smaller clinics and hospitals select tools to use.
Zoom in: NC CHAIN is being led by Dr. David McSwain, who is also the chief medical informatics office at UNC Health.
- He believes NC CHAIN is needed because of how quickly the AI landscape is changing in health care, with hundreds of tools and companies flooding the space and adding new capabilities nearly every week.
- It can be a minefield for health care clinics to navigate if they don't have the resources of a large system or even a staff member dedicated to that topic alone. Both UNC and Duke have developed frameworks about how to use AI safely in the hospital setting.
- "Even if a rural clinic knows that it wants an ambient scribing tool," McSwain said, "they don't have [the staff] to truly understand how the technology not only fits into their practice but whether it is secure and safe, cost effective or going to be obsolete in 18 months."
How it works: Many rural clinics and small health care offices are under increasing financial strain that AI could help with, McSwain said. But the options can feel bewildering.
- He noted that the AI tools in health can range from transcription and documentation to helping patients prepare for visits and deal with billing and compliance.
- NC CHAIN will work both by consulting with rural clinics and by studying them to see what tools might be best in those settings or how existing tools can be used differently.
- McSwain said the findings NC CHAIN collects could be used to inform politicians and regulators about what is happening with AI in the health care space.
What's next: McSwain said the next step for the program will be to use its connections across hospital systems to identify small clinics to work with in rural parts of the state.