ARTICLE SUMMARY:
UK NICE addresses AI from different vantage points. Excerpted from Pathways Picks August 28, A Key FDA Hire and More From the US, Australia, and the UK.
The UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) circulated a position statement August 20 on the prospects for leveraging artificial intelligence to support evidence generation for health technology assessments (HTA). NICE acknowledged the value of AI but also urged caution to ensure AI tools delivered appropriate and accurate information. “If more explainable and common methods are potentially robust, those should be presented in the first instance, with supplementary user of less transparent approach,” the HTA agency writes.
NICE issued a draft assessment August 28 of two AI-based technologies designed to assess and triage skin lesions for cancer, concluding they require more research before they can be used for routine care by the NHS. Specifically, NICE reviewed data for the Deep Ensemble for Recognition of Malignancy (DERM), developed by Skin Analytics, and Moleanalyzer pro, from FotoFinder Systems. They both have potential to help support teledermatology services to address dermatology staff shortages, but available data so far suggests uncertain benefits and the potential for missed or delayed diagnoses, NICE states. Comments on the draft are due September 25.