Artificial intelligence is creating new opportunities to improve care, reduce administrative burden, accelerate discovery, and make healthcare delivery more efficient. At the same time, emerging technologies are reshaping the cybersecurity threat landscape, strengthening cyber defense and resilience while also giving bad actors new capabilities. These advances raise important questions about data privacy, security, accountability, and patient trust.
HDGC works to advance policies that enable innovation while ensuring healthcare organizations have the tools, partnerships, and regulatory clarity needed to prepare for and respond to evolving threats and adopt new technologies safely and responsibly.
AI is rapidly expanding opportunities to improve care, accelerate research and discovery, reduce administrative burden, and make healthcare delivery more efficient. Yet rapid technological change also introduces new risks and policy challenges. Realizing the benefits of AI and other emerging technologies while managing these evolving risks will require clear, risk-based policies, a capable workforce, and sustained partnership between government and every sector of healthcare.
The growing use of AI raises important questions around privacy, accountability, and patient trust. Nearly three in ten adults (29%) use AI tools or chatbots for health information and advice at least monthly, yet 77% are concerned about the privacy of medical information they provide to AI tools.
Healthcare organizations and the sensitive data and critical systems they maintain are persistent targets for cyberattacks from sophisticated adversaries, including organized criminal groups and state-sponsored actors. The consequences of a breach can extend beyond the loss of data. Cyberattacks can disrupt clinical care, delay treatment, affect interconnected organizations, and threaten patient safety. In 2026, AI-driven attacks increased 56% over the prior year, and healthcare had the highest average breach cost of any industry for the 13th consecutive year. Healthcare organizations may also have to navigate more than 75 different state and federal breach-reporting procedures following an incident, adding complexity at a time when resources are needed to respond and restore critical systems.
Healthcare AI policy should provide clear and consistent guardrails that protect patients while allowing innovation to advance. HDGC supports a harmonized federal framework that recognizes differences in the risks and applications of AI, reduces conflicting requirements, and provides healthcare organizations with greater regulatory certainty.
Government and industry share responsibility for creating an environment in which healthcare innovation can advance safely. Strong public-private partnerships can help policymakers understand emerging technologies, improve cybersecurity preparedness and information sharing, and ensure new policies reflect the realities of healthcare delivery.
The promise of an emerging technology depends on a workforce equipped to use it responsibly and protect the systems on which healthcare depends. HDGC supports investments in education, training, infrastructure, and workforce development that build long-term capacity in both AI and cybersecurity.
