In this insight, Diane Whitehouse reflects on key discussions from ICIC26 about artificial intelligence and integrated care, exploring how responsible AI, co-design and digital innovation can support more people-centred health and care systems.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is top of many people’s agenda. It is certainly a core challenge. A plenary session at ICIC26 explained extremely clearly what AI means for integrated care. The keynote speaker was Professor Laura Rosella, who is one of Canada’s trailblazers in the field of AI and public health. Laura’s key message was that AI has reached a tipping point for health and care. Her desire was to see people engage, have a say and shape the future of AI. Her exploration of agentic AI – the ability of AI systems to focus on specific goals with limited supervision – as one of the most important current areas of work in AI was especially informative.
Key current messages about responsible AI
Laura’s reflections on AI were all extremely clear, well-structured, and outlined as explicit, clear categories. Developments seem to come in fours!
Among Laura’s core arguments were that it is important:
- for people to regain agency in the “AI space”
- for stakeholders to be involved
- for deliberate system leadership to be a core focus
- ultimately, “to get this right”
Besides at least four new trends in developments and four essential building blocks, there are four tensions that people cannot ignore. There are also four current barriers to responsible AI growth in health and care.
Vital supporting evidence
Laura’s presentation was nicely supported by citations of important literature. She referred to both large-scale studies and reports (for example, the Stanford 2025 AI Index; WHO/Europe 2025) as well as smaller-scale studies. As is evident, many of the materials were very recent, dating from 2024–2026. Laura also included references to her own latest work, alongside that of colleagues at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Toronto) and others, on the use of AI in diabetes-related care.
Two ICIC 2026 examples of AI developments
On Monday, 13 April 2026, an afternoon session focused on co-production and co-design. Among the several interesting presentations, two co-designed digital care-based initiatives on AI and apps were outlined. As on many occasions throughout the three days of ICIC 2026, it was fascinating to hear about important Birmingham-based initiatives.
Simon Fenton, Chief Executive Officer of Forward Carers, a Birmingham community enterprise and care-friendly community for unpaid carers, described the enterprise’s work on iCASPAR®. Having received funding from England’s Department of Health and Social Care’s Accelerating Reform Fund, Forward Carers developed an intelligent carers assessment, support plan and review. The social enterprise has since introduced and fine-tuned the AI-based tool to enhance and improve the work of unpaid carers by introducing a four-day smart week.
There was a nice synergy here between Forward Carers’ work and research conducted by Chris Poyner and colleagues from the University of Birmingham. Chris and his team developed an app to match up potential clients who are in need of care with actual carers. His investigation focused on experience-based co-design. Co-designing technology with people with lived experience underlined the need to embed lived experience from the earliest research stages as well as in system-level planning. In this way, the team avoided reproducing inequities in the design of future digital care tools and optimised workforce deployment.
EHTEL’s own interest in AI and apps
EHTEL is a European multi-stakeholder forum for implementers advancing digital health and care transformation, based in Brussels, Belgium. Its members are located in Europe and beyond. EHTEL and its members are keen to further positive current and future use of AI. Interests cover a wide variety of health and care settings (from the hospital to the home), and different health and care arenas (from self-management to primary, secondary, and even tertiary care). In the last six months, EHTEL has produced two working papers that reflect on health and care potential emerging from AI and other algorithm-based tools’ use. Based on these foundations, EHTEL team members have already had the opportunity to provide input on the latest AI directions to the work of both the OECD and WHO/Europe.
In conclusion
The richness of the materials presented at ICIC 2026 was particularly pertinent to many types of stakeholders and actors in the field of integrated care, not only to the work of EHTEL. The importance of the messages explored by keynote speakers, such as Laura Rosella, and by presenters in smaller, parallel sessions, like Simon Fenton and Chris Poyner, was extremely valuable. Their work showed how vital it is for people who focus either practically or on research to collaborate and share knowledge on the responsible use of AI.