Becker’s Healthcare Podcast Trust by Design: How Voluntary Accreditation is Shaping Responsible Healthcare AI
Feb 26, 2026
Shawn Griffin, MD, President and CEO of URAC and former clinical leader in medical information, discusses voluntary accreditation for healthcare AI. He covers why independent standards were needed. He outlines core focus areas like data protection, ethics, clinician oversight. He explains how accreditation speeds safe adoption, shapes vendor selection, and supports ongoing risk management.
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Accreditation Fills The Regulatory Vacuum
- Accreditation fills the trust gap as AI adoption outpaces regulation in healthcare.
- Shawn Griffin formed a stakeholder group and built national guardrails because vendors and users couldn't reliably tell good tools from bad ones.
From PowerPoint Hype To Real Deployment Problems
- Early AI in 2018 was mostly hype and PowerPoint without substance, but recent vendor shifts made AI the 'sprinkles' on every product.
- URAC convened academics, clinicians, ethicists and vendors and expanded the plan to accredit both users and developers of AI.
Verify Foundational Controls Before Deploying AI
- Check foundational focus areas before deploying AI, such as regulatory monitoring, data protection, scalability and qualified personnel.
- URAC verifies these basics rather than accepting 'we follow best practices' as sufficient evidence of safety.