Algorithmic Allocation of Resources in Healthcare for Disabled and Elderly Care Services Allegedly Harming Patients

July 2, 2021

A controversial healthcare algorithm, intended to fairly distribute caregiving resources, inadvertently reduced care hours significantly for the disabled and elderly. The system faced legal challenges due to its inability to accurately assess individual needs, leading to hardships and harm. This incident highlights the importance of implementing safe and secure AI practices, particularly in sensitive areas like healthcare decision-making. For those interested in shaping the governance and Map of such incidents using HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM (Govern/Map), JOIN US.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MAP 4.1 — similarity 0.694, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 1.6 — similarity 0.690, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 2.6 — similarity 0.687, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: state-governments, idaho-state-government, arkansas-state-government, washington-dc-government, pennsylvania-state-government, iowa-state-government, missouri-state-government
Alleged developer: brant-fries, state-governments
Alleged harmed parties: disabled-people, elderly-people, low-income-people, larkin-seiler, tammy-dobbs

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/603

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.