Tool coming to ensure safe use of AI in aged care
An online resource is in development to provide risk assessments on AI technologies for the health and aged care sector to ensure better outcomes for consumers.
A new online tool to help classify different types of artificial intelligence solutions used in Australian health and aged care has been announced by the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre.
The Department of Health and Aged Care and two specialist AI teams within the University of Technology Sydney UTS Rapido and UTS Human Technology Institute are also involved in the initiative to develop and road test the localisation of an international framework to support the safe adoption of AI.
The project will deliver a self-serve advisory and benchmarking tool for AI developers, users, and policy makers tailored for the Australian health and aged care sector.
“We will be involving AI system developers whose systems have been developed in aged care in the development and testing of the classification framework to ensure it is valuable for use across the continuum of health and social care in Australia,” a DHCRC spokesperson told Australian Ageing Agenda.
The AI Classification Framework, which was developed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development AI Network of Experts and endorsed by 46 countries so far including Australia, provides an internationally recognised baseline for classifying AI systems and assessing the effectiveness of national AI strategies.
The framework aims to help policy makers, regulators, legislators and anyone procuring AI solutions assess the risks and opportunities of different AI sytyems.
The online tool will adapt the framework to the Australian context and the DHCRC project will adapt the tool for health and aged care organisations in Australia. The dynamic tool will identify specific risks associated with bias, explainability and robustness of AI within health and aged care.
The project provides a standardised approach to classifying the varied types of AI systems in use, and complements the work of government and industry to define AI ethics principles, develop AI risk assessments, and provide guardrails for the safe and responsible use of AI, said Digital Health CRC chief executive officer Annette Schmiede.
“The availability and adoption of AI is without doubt moving at a rapid pace across all sectors, including healthcare,” said Ms Schmiede.
“The challenge is building clear and consistent guidance and tools, ensuring these are effective for the diverse range of audiences and AI solutions across healthcare including developers, health care providers and consumers.”
Department of Health and Aged Care Assistant Secretary, Digital and Service Design, Sam Peascod said the government had to provide guidance on how to use AI safely and responsibly as it looked to build community trust and promote AI adoption.
“Having a tool that can assist in classifying and performing a risk assessment of AI technologies will support the adoption of AI solutions by health care organisations and health care providers, ultimately leading to better health outcomes for consumers,” Mr Peascod said.
The project team is working towards having a basic web tool ready for testing by mid-2025.
“The exciting aspect of this project is to build and test an interactive tool that provides great user experience and where the smarts behind the scenes can be dynamically refined with subsequent iterations,” said UTS Rapido principal delivery manager Raj Calisa.
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