UC Berkeley CDSS News: On February 8,  Ziad Obermeyer, Blue Cross Distinguished Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at Berkeley Public Health, warned the U.S. Senate Finance Committee about some of AI’s potential hazards within the healthcare field, and offered ways to ensure that AI systems are safe, unbiased and useful.

The hearing, “Artificial Intelligence and Health Care: Promise and Pitfalls,” explored the growing use of AI in medicine, and by federal health care agencies.

“Throughout my ten years of practicing medicine, I have agonized over missed diagnoses, futile treatments, unnecessary tests and more,” Obermeyer said. “The collective weight of these errors, in my view, is a major driver of the dual crisis in our healthcare system: suboptimal outcomes at very high cost. AI holds tremendous promise as a solution to both problems.”

C3.ai DTI Co-P.I. Ziad Obermeyer worked on the COVID-19 research project, “Using Data Science to Understand the Heterogeneity of SARS-COV-2 Transmission and COVID-19 Clinical Presentation in Mexico,” led by P.I. Stefano Bertozzi, Dean Emeritus and Professor of Health Policy and Management, at the University of California, Berkeley.

Read the full story, “Ziad Obermeyer testifies in U.S. Congress on how AI can help health care.”