DiMe launches new initiative to scale trusted, high-impact AI care navigation in response to how patients are already using AI to navigate care

Founding members span Big Tech, healthcare, payers, and patient groups to define what good looks like for trusted AI-enabled care journeys

BOSTON, Jan. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Yesterday, the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) announced the launch of Scaling Trusted, High-Impact AI Care Navigation, a new multi-stakeholder initiative convening leaders from technology, healthcare delivery, patient advocacy, life sciences, and policy to accelerate the responsible adoption of AI-enabled care navigation at scale.

While founding members are already participating, DiMe is actively welcoming additional organizations to join this effort as it moves into execution. This initiative is designed to be shaped by the field at a moment when norms, evidence, and expectations for AI-enabled care navigation are still being formed.

Navigating healthcare is exhausting. Patients struggle to book appointments, obtain referrals, move between providers, and manage insurance. These barriers delay care, worsen outcomes, and deepen inequities. Increasingly, patients are turning to AI to manage these challenges because the system leaves them little choice, but the solutions and processes available today are far from optimized. At the same time, health systems and payers are under pressure to do more with fewer resources, while patients continue to bear the consequences when care coordination breaks down.

"Patients don't experience healthcare as algorithms or policy frameworks," said Jennifer Goldsack, CEO of DiMe. "They experience it as delays, confusion, and stress at moments when they are already vulnerable. This project exists because patients are already using AI to navigate care today. Our responsibility is to ensure those tools are trustworthy, patient-centered, and grounded in evidence, while giving organizations the confidence to scale what actually works."

Patient-driven use of AI for care navigation is increasingly widespread, underscoring both the urgency and the risk of innovation that outpaces inclusion and accountability.

A significant step in advancing DiMe's Healthcare 2030 vision for a sustainable health system in the digital era, this effort builds directly on The Playbook: Implementing AI in Healthcare, developed with Google for Health and more than 30 partners to help organizations identify high-value AI use cases and move responsibly from pilots to scale. Building on the high-value AI use cases identified in The Playbook, this initiative focuses on one of the most immediate and consequential areas of patient impact: care navigation. This work on AI-enabled patient navigation is the first of DiMe's 2026 portfolio of AI projects, with an initiative to operationalize AI governance launching later this quarter. 

Agencies, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), have emphasized the need for interoperable, patient-centered digital tools alongside clearer expectations for governance, accountability, and performance monitoring as AI becomes embedded in care delivery. And as these policy tailwinds increase, the field needs shared, credible evidence for how AI-enabled navigation performs in real care settings, for real patients, under real constraints. The Scaling Trusted, High-Impact AI Care Navigation project will translate that need into open, evidence-based resources the field can use now.

Founding members include organizations spanning the tech, healthcare delivery, payer, and patient navigation sectors, reflecting the voices of patients, clinicians, health systems, payers, and innovators working to simplify care journeys without compromising trust or safety.

Intel has stepped up to lead in this work as Title Sponsors alongside fellow founding partners that include the American Osteopathic Association, Association of Cancer Care Centers, Boston Children's Hospital, Carey, Carna Health, Google for Health, Mass General Brigham, the National Health Council, Stanford Medicine Department of Pediatrics, Swept AI, Talamel Health Technologies, UC Irvine Institute for Future Health, and Visana Health.

"The technology is moving fast, but without alignment on trust, utility, and real-world impact, we risk repeating the cycle of promising innovation that never scales," said Alex Flores, General Manager, Healthcare and Life Sciences Vertical, Intel. "This project brings the full ecosystem together to build the evidence, frameworks, and shared understanding needed to make AI-enabled navigation work for patients and for the healthcare system at large."

As AI increasingly shapes how people access and move through care, the question is no longer whether AI-enabled navigation will scale, but whether it will do so in ways that earn trust and deliver real value. Organizations that join this initiative will help define the standards and evidence that shape AI-enabled care navigation for years to come.

About the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe)

The Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the safe, effective, equitable, and ethical use of digital technologies to redefine healthcare and improve lives. DiMe delivers open-access resources, multi-stakeholder collaborations, and evidence-based frameworks to accelerate the responsible digitization of healthcare. Learn more at www.dimesociety.org.

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SOURCE Digital Medicine Society (DiMe)