Who decides which health AI gets used? It isn't only the companies.
NICE is the body that produces guidance for the NHS and the wider health and care system in England. For digital and AI tools it has a middle path called early value assessment (EVA). It can say: this looks promising, you may use it early, but evidence has to be collected. Or it can say the evidence is not there yet.
What it has done so far
A June 2026 summary from the British Society of Echocardiography reports that NICE's early value assessment HTG779 reviewed four AI echocardiography tools for heart failure and concluded there is currently insufficient evidence for routine NHS adoption or funding, placing them in an early-use category. NICE has also published an early value assessment (HTG746) on AI for skin lesion triage. I read these from summaries and one NICE page; I did not read the full guidance documents, so check the wording before you quote them.
The US looks different
The National Institutes of Health shapes health AI differently, mostly through research funding and data priorities. It asked the public for input on an AI strategy in 2025. I have not confirmed where that stands now, so I won't say.
Why I like the rule
"Promising, now prove it" gives patients the benefit early and keeps the evidence coming. For a builder it is also a spec, and I'd use it even where no regulator is asking:
- Write the evidence plan before launch. What will you measure while the tool is in use, and what result would make you pull it back?
- Measure the right thing. A lab score is not an outcome. I ran HealthBench on Tabibu and published that my own pipeline scored 0.426 against 0.522 for the bare model, on my own 150-conversation re-run, not the official leaderboard. Write-up here.
- Publish the limits. Tabibu has no clinician review yet, and says so at tabibu.health/trust.
Tabibu is an information tool and is not going through a medical-device process. I mention the rulebook because it is a good one to borrow, not because I meet it.
Should an AI health tool have to prove itself before it is used, or while it is being used? I lean toward "while, with a plan", and I'd like to hear the case against.
I post short videos in this series on LinkedIn and TikTok; come say hi.
General information, not medical advice.
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