HARRISBURG, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Citing inaction at the federal level, Pennsylvania lawmakers held a hearing on how artificial intelligence will affect health care, and the role government should play.
The Tuesday joint hearing between the Pennsylvania House Communications and Technology and the Health committees opened with Democratic state Rep. Dan Frankel, chairman of the Health Committee, assuring people the hearing wouldn’t sound like a 1950s horror movie where the robots are taking over:
“The experts testifying before us today are going to help us dive deeper into how AI is going to impact our health care,” he said.
The hearing featured testimony on the benefits of AI in health care, including a reduction of staff turnover due to burnout, handling administrative tasks and earlier diagnosis to prevent disease progression.
But the panel said there were concerns, including lack of transparency from AI creators and a lack of human oversight.
“Across the country, only 57% of the hospitals using AI are conducting evaluation,” said University of Minneapolis public health professor Paige Nong. “We have a lot of progress to make here in terms of ensuring that the tools that we're using perform well and are providing value.”
Public health economist Hannah Nepresh discussed the possibility that insurers could use AI to restrict or deny care.
“That is just setting up an even more adversarial situation between providers and their patients versus payers and their desire to constrain costs,” she said, “and I see the perspective on both sides. I think it's a tricky needle to thread.”
While there is a bill in the state House Communications and Technology Committee, its chairman, Democratic state Rep. Joe Cires, expressed concern over a lack of action from federal lawmakers.
“I think they should do their job. I don't care what party it is,” he said. “I think we should have federal guidelines on everything that we've been talking about, but we don't. So it's our obligation as a state.”