AMA Names DiMe Founder Jennifer Goldsack to Lead Center for Digital Health and AI

The American Medical Association has hired Jennifer Goldsack, founder and chief executive of the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe), as senior vice president and inaugural leader of its Center for Digital Health and AI, the AMA announced on September 1.

The AMA launched the center last year, and the announcement said it has since published a survey of AI use among physicians and an international survey on wearables that found strong enthusiasm alongside system barriers to adoption in patient care.

From DiMe to the AMA

Goldsack founded DiMe, a global nonprofit focused on digital medicine, in 2019. According to the AMA, DiMe under her leadership developed frameworks for evaluating sensor-based measures that have been cited by the FDA and the European Medicines Agency, set up collaborative communities with FDA participation on digital measurement and connected health, and launched the DiMe Seal, an evidence-based evaluation framework for digital health software that CMS recognizes as an on-ramp to its Medicare App Library.

Before DiMe, she held leadership roles at the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative, a public-private partnership co-founded by Duke University and the FDA, where she led digital health work and was operational co-lead of the first randomized clinical trial run using the FDA's Sentinel System, the AMA said. She serves on the board of Sage Bionetworks and on the executive committee of the Department of Health and Human Services' National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, according to the release. She is also a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Roundtable on Genomics and Precision Health and contributes to the World Economic Forum's Digital Health Action Collaborative.

Earlier in her career, Goldsack conducted outcomes and clinical research at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, helped launch a pragmatic research and innovation center within a health system and worked with digital health startups, the AMA said. She holds a master's degree in chemistry from the University of Oxford, a master's in the history and sociology of medicine from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from George Washington University. The association also noted that she is a retired elite athlete and an Olympian.

The two organizations were already working together. In August, the AMA and DiMe, under Goldsack's leadership, launched a framework identifying five enduring responsibilities for physicians as digital health and AI evolve, the AMA said. DistilINFO noted that this earlier collaboration suggests the AMA had been working closely with Goldsack and DiMe before hiring her.

What the AMA says it wants

"Digital health and augmented intelligence are rapidly and fundamentally changing how and where care is delivered," said AMA CEO John Whyte. "For these tools to reach their full potential and be effective for patients, physicians must lead the way in developing and implementing them."

Goldsack said, "We're going to set a high bar for what better healthcare looks like in the digital and AI era."

The AMA's announcement did not say who will lead DiMe after her departure or when she starts in the new role.