UC San Diego Health Adds Chief Health AI Officer

UC San Diego Health has joined UCSF Health and UC Davis Health in creating chief health AI officer roles in their health systems in 2023.

Sara Murray, M.D., M.A.S., was recently named vice president and chief health AI officer
at UCSF Health, and Dennis Chornenky, former senior advisor and strategy consultant in AI and emerging technology for the White House, was been named chief AI advisor to UC Davis Health.

Now Karandeep Singh, M.D., has been recruited as the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Endowed Chair in Digital Health Innovation at University of California School of Medicine and named as the inaugural chief health AI officer at UC San Diego Health, a newly developed position for the region’s only academic medical center.

As a nephrologist, Singh also holds a master’s degree in biomedical informatics from Harvard Medical School. He achieved his medical education at the University of Michigan Medical School and completed his internal medicine residency at UCLA Medical Center.

He was an associate professor of learning health sciences, internal medicine, urology, and information at the University of Michigan and served as the associate chief medical information officer of artificial intelligence at Michigan Medicine.

In 2022, Singh participated in the first invite-only Google Health Bioethics Summit, an exclusive conference of national experts encouraged to assist Google Health develop policies and principles related to AI use in healthcare. He used this opportunity to advocate for transparency in Google’s approach.

His research has been cited in several policy documents, including the White House’s Blueprint for an Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Government Accountability Office, National Academy of Medicine, the UK Government Regulatory Horizons Council, New Zealand Ministry of Health, and in New York City’s Artificial Intelligence Strategy.

“Dr. Singh’s leadership in technology will help us move health care forward by navigating a rapidly evolving digital era that will drive UC San Diego Health to the forefront of responsible AI development and implementation,” said Amy Sitapati, M.D., chief medical information officer for population health and interim chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at University of California School of Medicine, in a statement.

Singh will lead organizational approaches that integrate AI into clinical workflows, reduce documentation time, improve efficiencies and patient experience, while ensuring the appropriate structure and governance are in place for successful, accountable AI deployment in health care.
Appointing the first chief health AI officer for UC San Diego Health enhances the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Center for Health Innovation’s (JCHI) vision to develop sophisticated and advanced solutions in healthcare.

“Dr. Singh’s expertise and reputation for being nationally recognized in the application of AI and digital health in the clinical setting will have a strong impact in the direction of JCHI and beyond,” said Christopher Longhurst, M.D., executive director of the Jacobs Center for Health Innovation, and chief medical officer and chief digital officer at UC San Diego Health, in a statement. “He is a dedicated trailblazer, who is uniquely qualified for this new role that will meaningfully bridge the gap between human expertise and technological advancements to improve lives.”

“I’m thrilled to take on this new role and help build out an AI strategy that will improve the experiences of the people receiving and delivering care within our health system,” said Singh, in a statement. He added that his focus will also include driving innovation beyond the hospital walls and expanding the health system’s reach to entire communities, industries and stretching as far as the national level.

“My goal is for UC San Diego Health to have greater representation on the national stage where AI policies are being actively shaped, and to ensure that groundbreaking research happening in AI has a path towards being implemented and evaluated with the goal of improving people’s lives and experiences," he said.