States are preparing to spend a share of a $50 billion federal rural health fund on artificial intelligence tools, and the peer-reviewed evidence that these tools improve access to care or patient health in rural communities is so thin it could fit in a short bibliography.
A recent academic review found only 26 peer-reviewed studies on AI in rural healthcare published between 2010 and late April of last year, and few of those examined implementation or patient outcomes, according to KFF Health News. That is the entire published base for a spending program of this size.
