Artificial intelligence and the Canadian health care system: the renewal of Colleen Flood’s URC creates exciting possibilities in health law research

By Common Law

Communication, Faculty of Law

Artificial Intelligence
Health-care
Artificial intelligence and the Canadian health care system: the renewal of Colleen Flood’s URC creates exciting possibilities in health law research
Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to significantly transform the practice of medicine, assisting and in some circumstances substituting for humans as medical service providers and expert decision-makers. Dr. Colleen Flood is exploring how AI can equitably and efficiently be adopted into the Canadian health care system. This research will form the basis of the second term of her University Research Chair (URC) in Health Law and Policy, which, as announced by the University of Ottawa, has been renewed for a period of 5 years.

Dr. Flood’s proposed program of research will address strategies for the regulation of AI in medicine as well as the governance processes that should be in place to determine whether or not to publicly fund such technologies. She will lead multidisciplinary teams and use comparative methodologies to provide decision-makers with a strong evidence base from which to better understand relevant liability and privacy concerns, and to design optimal governance systems for the appropriate adoption of AI and other new technologies into our public health care system.

Dr. Flood is one of the world’s leading experts in comparative health law and policy and her work has had significant impact in Canada and internationally. Her outstanding leadership since joining the University of Ottawa in 2014 has been acknowledged by her appointment as the Inaugural Director of the multidisciplinary uOttawa Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics in 2015, and her induction into both the Royal Society of Canada in 2016 and the Academy of Health Sciences in 2018.

Click here to read more about Dr. Flood’s Chair, five other renewed URCs, and the awarding of a brand new URC focused on the treatment of vascular diseases.