Coalition for Health AI will help Joint Commission write responsible AI ‘playbooks’

STAT News – Tuesday, June 10, 2025
By Brittany Trang

The Joint Commission, the nation’s oldest health care accreditation organization, is forming a partnership with the Coalition for Health AI to develop guidelines for responsible use of health AI, and a new certification program, STAT has learned.

The partnership brings together the expertise of the health AI industry group, which boasts 3,000 members from across the health care and life sciences industries, with the reach of the Joint Commission. The partnership will drive the development and adoption of AI best practices and guidance in “over 80% of health care organizations and programs in the U.S.” according to a statement from the Joint Commission.

“While it’s impossible to predict exactly what healthcare will look like over that time, AI’s integration and potential to improve quality patient care is enormous — but only if we do it right,” said Jonathan Perlin, president and CEO of the Joint Commission, in the statement. “By working with CHAI, we are creating a roadmap and offering guidance for healthcare organizations so they can harness this technology in ways that not only support safety but engender trust among stakeholders.”

However, not everybody is happy about the partnership. Earlier this week, The Joint Commission met with the office of Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), where they discussed the upcoming partnership. In the meeting, Miller-Meeks’ office reiterated to the Joint Commission its concerns about CHAI, a staffer told STAT via email.

Last year, Miller-Meeks, along with three other Republican representatives, sent letters to officials at the Food and Drug Administration and Office of the National Coordinator/Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, outlining concerns that CHAI’s approach to health AI was rife with conflicts of interest, opportunities for regulatory capture, drive consolidation, and would lead to costlier health care. The letters asked government officials to stop working with CHAI, and two Biden officials subsequently stepped down from non-voting positions on CHAI’s board.

Republican lawmakers criticize FDA’s partnership with CHAI on regulating AI in medicine
CHAI’s CEO, Brian Anderson, has denied that the industry group’s processes are run by the tech interests participating in the organization’s governance. “We are not an organization that is run by Big Tech. Let me repeat that again: We are not an organization that is run by Big Tech,” he told STAT in an interview last year.

Judy Gichoya, an associate professor of interventional radiology & informatics at Emory University, told STAT that AI is too broad for the Joint Commission — even with the help of CHAI — to effectively regulate. She pointed out the recent study from Apple that highlighted how language models and reasoning models cannot actually reason their way through hard problems. “There’s so much hype today. And for you to say that we exactly know how to regulate AI, I think it’s a lie. We don’t know,” she said.

Institutions like CHAI, the Joint Commission, and the American College of Radiology want accreditation fees, she said — “That’s going to be the business model” — and health care providers are hungry for something that tells them they’re using AI correctly. A better approach, Gichoya said, would be to acknowledge that no AI is ever going to be 100% correct and build guardrails around it, rather than trying to sweep imperfections under the rug when the Joint Commission comes for an inspection.

“Given the power of the Joint Commission and how much say they have, and to say only one person can be the checklist that we adopt — I think it’s a short-term solution that’s not going to make AI safe for anyone,” she said.

At a CHAI summit last week, Anderson said that the current administration has reached out to become involved in CHAI’s work. Andrea Heuer, a CHAI spokesperson, told STAT via email that “CHAI is having thoughtful conversations with representatives at the federal and state level … ” — including, she said, those at the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the National Institutes for Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, Congress, and more.

The Joint Commission convened a meeting last fall to discuss how the organization could get involved in regulating AI use in health care. Reached after the meeting last year, Anderson said that because the Joint Commission is involved at the implementation level of health care, it can help ensure people are adhering to best AI practices.

“If CHAI is bringing together industry and health systems to help define what these best practices are … it’s great to have a partner like the Joint Commission that will be working with health systems in that last mile at that AI governance level,” he told STAT at the time.

The organizations plan for the first AI guidance to be available this fall, with an AI certification to follow.

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