Healthcare IT Today January 23, 2026
The following is a guest article by Nabila El-Bassel, Ph.D. DSW, Founding Director of the Social Intervention Group at the Columbia University School of Social Work
What if a physician assumed her patient was healthy, just because he seldom came to the clinic?
Researchers uncovered serious flaws in an artificial intelligence (AI) tool used by a UnitedHealthcare unit, which consistently ranked black patients as healthier than white patients with the same conditions–not because they were healthier, but because they incurred lower healthcare costs. It failed to recognize that lower spending was driven by barriers to healthcare access.
This is not an isolated finding; it is a warning about a larger problem affecting AI in healthcare. Unless designed with meaningful patient...
Today's Sponsors
Today's Sponsor