Summary
The Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) has launched a new program called PULSE that will let 10 US public health agencies test AI tools from OpenAI and Anthropic. The program aims to help health departments understand how to use generative AI safely and effectively. OpenAI and Anthropic have donated 10 enterprise licenses that can serve up to 2,000 public health workers. The trials will focus on five key areas, including tracking diseases, improving operations, and translating public health messages.
Main Impact
This program marks a major step in bringing advanced AI tools into public health work. Many local health departments have not used AI before. Nearly 40% of local health agencies are not using AI at all, according to data from the National Association of County and City Health Officials. The PULSE program gives these agencies a chance to test AI in real-world settings with support from experts. The goal is to create guides that other health departments can follow when they want to use AI.
Key Details
What Happened
CHAI announced the Public Health Use Case and Learning Scaling Engine, or PULSE, on July 20, 2026. The program will run trials in 10 state, local, tribal, or territorial health departments. OpenAI and Anthropic provided enterprise licenses for their AI products. Accenture, a large consulting firm, will help onboard participants and create playbooks based on what the trials teach.
Important Numbers and Facts
The program will cover five main use cases: biosurveillance and drug-wave prediction, mapping social factors that affect health, improving operations and analyzing community feedback, translating public communications into multiple languages, and automatically retrieving clinical data using a standard called FHIR. FHIR is a way for different health computer systems to share information. The pilots are set to start in autumn 2026. CHAI expects to release the resulting playbooks in 2027.
Background and Context
Public health agencies have faced years of limited technology funding. The COVID-19 pandemic showed how hard it is for these agencies to respond quickly without modern tools. AI could help them do more with less money and fewer staff. But using AI in health work comes with risks. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommends that agencies evaluate AI systems based on how they will be used, who will be affected, and what could go wrong. CHAI has not yet published specific rules for privacy, security, or human review for the five PULSE use cases.
Public or Industry Reaction
Dr. David Lakey, a former Texas health commissioner, said that every major technology change succeeds or fails based on trust, governance, and execution. He said PULSE is designed for practical use. Felipe Millon from OpenAI said the licenses are meant to help public health organizations test the tools in a structured way. Elizabeth Kelly from Anthropic said AI can help public health teams as long as it is brought in with care and proper safeguards. Dr. Ashish Jha, a former White House COVID-19 response coordinator, said the program will test which applications work and share the results with other agencies.
What This Means Going Forward
The PULSE program still has many unanswered questions. CHAI has not explained how the pilots will be evaluated or what measures will be used to judge success. It is not clear whether staff must check AI outputs before using them for public communications, translations, or clinical data retrieval. The program also does not specify how patient data will be protected. HIPAA, the main health privacy law, will apply to some but not all participants. OpenAI and Anthropic say they do not use business customer data to train their models by default, but the announcement does not explain how data will be stored, accessed, or deleted. The playbooks that come out of this program could shape how hundreds of health agencies use AI in the future. But for now, many important details about safety, privacy, and oversight remain unclear.
Final Take
The PULSE program gives public health agencies a rare chance to test advanced AI tools with expert support. But the lack of clear rules for evaluation, privacy, and human oversight raises questions about how useful the results will be. The success of this program will depend on whether the participating agencies can turn their experiences into practical guidance that other health departments can trust and follow.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the PULSE program?
PULSE stands for Public Health Use Case and Learning Scaling Engine. It is a program run by the Coalition for Health AI that lets 10 US public health agencies test AI tools from OpenAI and Anthropic. The goal is to create guides that help other health departments use AI safely and effectively.
What will the AI tools be used for?
The AI tools will be tested in five areas: tracking diseases and predicting drug waves, mapping social factors that affect health, improving operations and analyzing community feedback, translating public health messages into multiple languages, and automatically retrieving clinical data from health computer systems.
When will the program start and when will results be available?
The pilots are scheduled to begin in autumn 2026. CHAI expects to release the resulting playbooks, which will serve as guides for other health agencies, in 2027.
