40 artificial intelligence programs underway at Fraser Health, but executives are mum

Family doctors, specialists and surgeons are increasingly using AI tools – but Fraser Health isn’t keen on discussing local AI initiatives.

Fraser Health is aggressively pursuing artificial intelligence programs with at least 40 initiatives underway, but the health authority refuses to make any officials available to discuss whether the investments represent good value for taxpayer money or are essentially pet projects following a trend.

CTV News has obtained documents Fraser Health has presented to outside stakeholders outlining their plans to harness technology with the goal of improving efficiency and services in B.C.’s most populous health authority. Despite numerous requests over two months, communications staff claimed no one was available to discuss them at any time, even weeks in advance.

The health authority has publicly announced the rollout of a handful of AI-powered strategies, including predicting patient discharge dates and a system to pre-determine staffing requirements. The latter is particularly eyebrow-raising as a priority, considering the staffing needs are already well-known and numerous health officials have acknowledged they simply do not have enough personnel for the volume of patients in our rapidly growing province.

In a presentation on Fraser Health’s “Digital Twin” program at Digital Health Canada last year, senior officials outlined a system with theoretical scenarios and virtual patients that recreates the health authority digitally in order to “test and understand the impact on bottlenecks and inform decision-making before deploy(ing) in (the) real world.”

This initiative and its use to the public health-care system, if any, has not been discussed with patients or taxpayers.

How deep is Fraser Health in the AI space?

In another presentation at Digital Health Canada, Sheazin Premji, the executive director of Fraser Health’s Centre for Advanced Analytics, Data Science and Innovation (CAADSI) included a slide stating the health authority has “40+ AI solutions across three streams, in varying stages of development and deployment.”

The same slide says Fraser Health has in-house, co-created and licensed software. Another slide lays out a future envisioning medical drones, facial recognition technology, 3D bioprinting, robot companions and portable diagnostic devices.

Hospital and ICU mortality, ethnicity prediction, pediatric respiratory triaging, chatbots and patient information summarizers are current AI projects in progress, according to the presentation, with various companies providing services in addition to the in-house systems.

Are these programs worth millions of tax dollars?

Several health authorities in the province are adopting AI technology, and family doctors are also embracing time-saving scribes to summarize appointments and cut down on time spent doing paperwork.

Fraser Health insists it’s in full compliance with Canada’s privacy laws and points to its “mandatory Privacy Impact Assessments, Security Threat and Risk Assessments, AI Risk Assessments for AI solutions, and our corporate policy on Responsible use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace.”

However, neither its website nor a vague written statement sent to CTV News make any mention of how the programs are evaluated for success or value for precious tax dollars.

“Is that the place where it’s needed most?” asked Kim McGrail, a professor at UBC’s School of Population and Public Health and Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, and scientific director of Population Data BC and Health Data Research Network Canada.

She said while there have been detailed studies and analysis of programs in other provinces, we need to see more in B.C. She was unsurprised to learn CTV News had been unsuccessful in discussing artificial intelligence initiatives with Fraser Health.

“I think what you’re pointing out is sort of a general lack of transparency in our health system,” said McGrail. “There’s a lot of things we don’t know or understand, either about decision-making or about inputs or about outcomes, and in health care, we could know more and we could report more publicly than we do now, so AI is perhaps another example of that.”

In a discussion with Simon Fraser University’s Digital Innovation and Leadership program posted to YouTube, Premji told the moderators that “we do need to look at that value, of the AI, and I think we need to do a better job on showing the (return on investment).”

This is the third part in a CTV Vancouver series taking a deep dive into the use of artificial intelligence in health care.

You can read part one here: Eye contact and earlier diagnosis: How AI is transforming front-line health care in B.C.

And part two here: B.C.’s privacy watchdog weighs in on health AI boom – as doctors warn it’s not a substitute