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Afreen Shariff: White House Unveils AI Action Plan

Afreen Shariff/LinkedIn

Jul 26, 2025, 11:55

Afreen Shariff: White House Unveils AI Action Plan

Afreen Shariff, Associate Professor of Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine, shared on LinkedIn:

“This week, the White House unveiled its AI Action Plan, a roadmap designed to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence across sectors, with a special emphasis on healthcare. The goal? Remove regulatory bottlenecks, create safe testing environments, and build standards so AI can move from concept to clinical reality.

For those of us working at the intersection of oncology, specialty care, and AI, this is a pivotal moment.

Why This Matters for Patients and Clinicians

Healthcare is notoriously slow to adopt new technologies—not because of lack of innovation, but because of complexity: fragmented systems, regulatory uncertainty, and real risks to patient safety.

The AI Action Plan addresses some of these barriers by:

Creating regulatory sandboxes to allow real-world AI testing in clinical workflows.
Developing standards for safety, accuracy, and interoperability.
Reducing administrative friction so innovative solutions can be deployed faster.

This shift is critical because patients—especially those undergoing cancer treatment—cannot afford delays in getting the right care at the right time.

Balance is just as important with data safety, regulatory guardrails on rules of operation.

My Focus: AI as an Enabler, Not a Distraction

In oncology, specialty care needs often arise suddenly: endocrine complications, immunotherapy toxicities, diabetes from cancer treatments. These issues lead to ER visits, treatment delays, and worse outcomes if not managed quickly. Today, the lack of timely specialty support is a real gap in cancer care.

AI can help predict and triage these complications before they escalate, giving clinicians decision support and patients faster access to the right expertise. It’s not about replacing the clinician; it’s about reducing the time from symptom onset to intervention—something current systems fail to do efficiently.”

Read Further.

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