Registration Open for the Symposium on Bridging Disparities in Health Care Using A.I.

10/21/2024

The Symposium on Bridging Disparities in Health Care Using Artificial Intelligence will be from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 22, at Il Monastero.

Registration is free. To register, fill out the Google form.

This symposium is presented by the Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics at Saint Louis University and Missouri University of Science and Technology and funded by the National Science Foundation Award #2222801.

While the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care may facilitate the development of a more equitable system, its use in medicine raises important ethical considerations. AI technologies are fundamentally changing how data is acquired, processed, and analyzed in virtually every aspect of health care.

Data from a single patient can be instantly compared to millions of others. Complex symptomatology can be reduced and rationalized with unprecedented speed and accuracy. Confidence in technologies not only have the potential to extend high-quality care to a greater number of people, but they also can help resolve important inequalities by extending the reach of medicine to rural populations, disenfranchised socioeconomic groups, and medically isolated global communities.

Improved computing algorithms sensitive to local needs can better manage access to vital health care and medications. In addition, limited health care resources such as transplantable organs can be better matched and allocated to recipients while reducing the waste of unused or damaged organs. 

Yet, AI presents unique challenges to privacy, autonomy, and justice. Limitations of AI technologies, including lack of transparency, interpretability, programming biases, and operator complacency are just some of the issues that must be considered as these systems become more integrated within health care.

Responding to these potential risks is necessary to ensure that AI technologies maximally benefit society while also protecting the sanctity of individual rights and privacy.  

This symposium is intended to explore the frontiers of modern medicine enabled by AI. It will focus on opportunities for improving access to health care for marginalized patient populations and ameliorating health disparities through the application of AI, including evolving practical and ethical concerns. This will be an opportunity to explore the multifaceted aspects of AI utilization in health care with a focus on how AI can improve the challenges associated with the delivery of precision medicine, such as more targeted organ matching, while protecting the ethical boundaries in which it must operate.

For more information, visit the Symposium website.