Source: FedScoop
A final Department of Health and Human Services rule will require developers seeking certification for health IT that employs artificial intelligence or other algorithms to meet certain transparency criteria by the end of 2024, despite calls in comments to push that deadline back. While the final rule from HHS’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology extended deadlines for other requirements between the proposed and final versions — such as requirements related to a new baseline standard for the health IT certification program — it maintained the end-of-next-year deadline for the AI and algorithms portion, underscoring the Biden administration’s focus on regulating the nascent and growing technology. Under the rule — called Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability: Certification Program Updates, Algorithm Transparency, and Information Sharing, or HTI-1 — developers will need to update health IT currently certified under ONC’s old requirements by Dec. 31, 2024. Those new requirements mandate that tools used to aid decision-making that use AI and algorithms must share information about how the technology works as part of the agency’s certification process.