In an effort to help foster ethical AI-based solutions in biomedical research and healthcare, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has recently released its first Ethical Guidelines for Application of Artificial Intelligence. The document was drafted by the Department of Health Research and ICMR’s Artificial Intelligence Cell, AI for Health. This ethical framework addresses specific issues that are pertinent to the usage of AI in health-related activities and will be beneficial to all stakeholders, including innovators, developers, patients, technologists, researchers, healthcare professionals, ethics committees, sponsors, and funding agencies involved in the research.
Adoption of AI in healthcare is growing exponentially in India. However, it poses potential ethical challenges such as algorithmic transparency and explainability, clarity on liability and accountability as well as potential bias and discrimination. To mitigate these issues, ICMR Director General Dr Rajiv Behl, advised that an ethical framework must be in place. NTAGI chief Dr N K Arora further stated that the purpose of the guideline is to provide an ethical framework that aids in the development, deployment, and adoption of AI-based solutions for biomedical research and healthcare delivery.
The guidelines explore topics such as: ethical principles for AI and health, guiding principles for stakeholders, the ethics review process, governance of artificial intelligence for healthcare and research, and the informed consent process. It is worth noting that the document does not limit innovation or recommend any disese-specific diagnostic or therapeutic approaches, but instead, only guides towards effective and safe development, deployment, and adoption of AI-based technologies in biomedical research and healthcare.
The above guidelines come at a timely moment. AI-driven solutions have great potential and can offer solutions to diagnosis and screening, therapeutics, preventive treatments, clinical decision-making, public health surveillance, complex data analysis, and predicting disease outcomes. With the help of these ethical guidelines, the healthcare industry can continue to expand the use of AI in order to better serve and provide value to those in need.
