About
Designing policy frameworks for the future of healthcare
Advancements underway in AI and machine learning (ML) have been portended to transform our world on a scale that surpasses previous Industrial Revolutions. AI will not only assist and become an integral part of the medical decision-making team, but will also act as a potential substitute for human caregivers, medical service providers, diagnosticians, and expert decision-makers. Current legal and regulatory regimes—protecting patient safety, privacy, and other values—were developed for an era of medicine that will be eclipsed. For AI health technologies to deliver optimal and equitable health care benefit to all Canadians, we should proactively identify and address how to ensure our regulatory governance is equal to the benefits and challenges emerging with new technologies. We will survey the salient legal issues that emerge as we consider the appropriate adoption of AI and machine learning into healthcare systems.
The research primarily focuses on the regulation of medical devices to ensure the safety and quality of AI as it is implemented within our healthcare system. Our goal will be to support Canadian regulators to enable the rapid infusion of beneficial AI and ML into the healthcare systems that empower patients and their health care providers whilst ensuring appropriate regulation for quality, safety, and privacy.
Launched as part of the Alex Trebek Forum for Dialogue’s Project on AI for Healthy Humans and Environments, this research stream is co-stewarded by the Centre for Law, Technology and Society, the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics, and the Institute for Science, Society and Policy. The research program is integrated with the “Machine M.D.” project funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Team
Stream Lead
Faculty
Affiliates
- Michael Da Silva, Senior Fellow in AI and Health Care (previously, Alex Trebek Postdoctoral Fellow in AI and Health, 2020-2022)
Outputs
Publications
- Report: AI & Health Care: A Fusion of Law & Science. An Introduction to the Issues (February 2021)
- Report: AI & Health Care: A Fusion of Law & Science. Regulation of Medical Devices with AI (May 2021)
Conversation
- AI in Healthcare: What’s Law Got to Do With It? (23 December 2020)
- IA + Santé : Penser les politiques de santé à l’ère du numérique (21 March 2021)
- The Regulation of Medical Devices with Artificial Intelligence (8 November 2021)
- Two Waves of Algorithmic Accountability for Mental Health Apps (7 December 2021)
Scholarships
- Michael Da Silva, Colleen M Flood & Matthew Herder, “Regulation of Health-Related Artificial Intelligence in Medical Devices: The Canadian Story” (2022) 55:3 University of British Columbia Law Review.
- Colleen M. Flood & Catherine Régis, “AI and Health Law” in Florian Martin-Bariteau & Teresa Scassa, Artificial Intelligence and the Law in Canada (Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2021).
- Bradley Henderson, Colleen M Flood & Teresa Scassa, “Artificial Intelligence in Canadian Healthcare: Will the Law Protect Us from Algorithmic Bias Resulting in Discrimination? Us from Algorithmic Bias Resulting in Discrimination?” (2022) 19:2 Canadian Journal of Law and Technology.
Funding
This research stream is supported by the Alex Trebek Forum for Dialogue, the University Research Chairs Program, CIFAR, as well as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.