Atul Butte Testifies before Congress

Watch Video of Dr. Butte's Testimony | Read Dr. Butte's Written Testimony

On December 8, 2021, Atul Butte, MD, PhD, representing the University of California Health System and UCSF Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health on “The Future of Biomedicine: Translating Biomedical Research into Personalized Health Care,” alongside four other national expert witnesses.

Butte provided Congress five areas of focus for the federal government:

• data science training
• data repositories (aka “data libraries”)
• federal data availability
• data sharing
• data diversity

Based on his extensive experience in the field, including his work in combining data from across six University of California medical schools and health systems, Butte responded to lawmakers’ questions, including:

• “What biases exist in AI & what are their effects on health care?”
  * 1:19 - Doris Matsui, Congresswoman from California's 6th District
• "How do we make sure networks [such as UC Davis Health Participate and the NIH All of Us Precision Medicine Network] are tools to address health disparities?"
  * 1:22 - Doris Matsui, California's 6th District
• “How can we improve communication between state and federal public health agencies and private health systems, and what special considerations should be made to ensure communication between public and private health systems is efficient, effective and secure”
  * 2:31 - Lori Trahan, Congresswoman, 3rd District of Massachusetts

*  Watch Dr. Butte's Testimony | Read Dr. Butte's Written Testimony