Baker Donelson's multidisciplinary AI Team brings together the Firm's nationally recognized Health Law Group with its technology, intellectual property, labor and employment, regulatory, and litigation attorneys to provide comprehensive legal counsel on AI-based technologies tailored to the health care industry. We regularly engage with health care organizations – including hospitals, health systems, physician groups, digital health companies, and post-acute care providers – on transactional, labor and employment, intellectual property, regulatory, compliance, and litigation matters. Our attorneys combine technological proficiency with deep health care legal acumen to deliver practical, efficient, and strategic advice in an evolving regulatory landscape.
Why Baker Donelson for Health Care AI?
Baker Donelson's health care practice is one of the largest in the nation, with decades of experience advising providers, payers, and health care companies on the full spectrum of legal matters. This deep health care foundation combined with our technology, data privacy, and data governance capabilities positions us to guide clients through AI implementation with a practical understanding of clinical workflows, reimbursement structures, and the unique compliance requirements facing health care organizations. We understand that AI in health care is not just a technology issue – it is a patient safety, regulatory, data stewardship, and operational issue that requires attorneys who know the industry.
Corporate and Technology Transactions
Our team routinely assists health systems with the development of AI governance programs and AI use policies, including AI evaluation tools and risk matrices designed for clinical and operational settings. We also help organizations revise and update existing data governance policies, data use agreements, and information management frameworks to address unique challenges posed by AI implementation. As a part of this work, we provide training and guidance to boards, executive leadership, legal and compliance teams, as well as clinical user groups regarding the responsible deployment of AI in patient care, revenue cycle management, and health system operations.
We also counsel health care organizations regarding the development and procurement of AI technologies, helping them to identify risks and implement mitigation strategies. We guide clients through strategic technology transactions – including agreements with electronic health record vendors, clinical decision support tool providers, and other health IT companies – and advise on structuring, documenting, and enforcing ownership and licensing of AI platforms, training data, prompts, and generated outputs. Our team supports health system innovation initiatives by structuring research collaborations, joint ventures, and strategic partnerships with AI developers, academic medical centers, and technology companies. We also advise on sponsored research agreements, data sharing arrangements for AI development, and commercialization of AI tools developed through these collaborations. Our team conducts due diligence reviews for mergers, acquisitions, and affiliations involving AI-enabled health care platforms.
Intellectual Property
We provide advice and counsel regarding the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in connection with AI technologies used in health care settings, including clinical algorithms, predictive models, and proprietary data sets. Our team offers guidance on copyrightability and patentability of AI-generated content, including authorship and inventorship standards relevant to medical research, clinical tools, and innovations developed through research collaborations. We advise on IP ownership, licensing, and commercialization strategies for AI products co-developed with technology partners, academic institutions, or internal innovation teams. We also develop trade secret protocols for input data, training data, and AI integration within health care environments, and we advise on best practices for use of AI tools to avoid unintended disclosures, data breaches, and privilege waiver.
Labor and Employment
We advise health care systems on the lawful use of AI in recruiting, screening, credentialing, promotion, discipline, and termination of clinical and non-clinical staff. We draft and update policies addressing employee and clinician use of AI in the workplace. We counsel on AI-enabled monitoring, surveillance, and productivity tools deployed in hospital and clinical settings. We also defend and investigate claims involving AI-driven decisions, including discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination in health care organizations. We train HR, medical staff leadership, and compliance teams on the compliant use of AI in employment and credentialing decisions.
Regulatory Compliance
We advise health care systems regarding compliance with recently enacted AI legislation as well as the existing statutory and regulatory requirements that apply with respect to AI. We provide advice and counsel regarding the intersection of data governance, AI governance, and data protection obligations, including with respect to data protection impact assessments, compliance with HIPAA and state laws, and conducting data inventories for clinical and operational data. Our team helps organizations develop comprehensive data use frameworks that address how clinical and operational data may be accessed, processed, and shared with AI systems, including vendor-hosted solutions, while maintaining compliance with privacy and security requirements. We prepare AI and privacy notices, disclosures, and consents required for patient-facing AI applications and clinical decision support tools. We also advise on best practices for processing protected health information and clinical data for use by AI tools, including de-identification strategies, minimum necessary standards, and contractual protections for data shared with AI vendors.
Litigation
We support health care systems with strategic insight generation, supporting early case assessment, litigation positioning, and decision-making in matters involving AI-driven clinical or operational decisions. We provide adversarial perspective testing, including articulation and stress-testing of opposing arguments in medical malpractice, regulatory enforcement, and breach-of-contract disputes involving AI vendors. Our team assists with streamlined first-draft preparation and content refinement, including pleadings, motions, briefs, and discovery in health care litigation. We offer intelligent document categorization and prioritization for productions and case development, fact synthesis and pattern analysis across large clinical document sets and deposition transcripts, and targeted summarization of complex materials including case law, medical records, discovery, and testimony.
Partner With Baker Donelson
As AI technologies continue to reshape the health care industry, it is essential to have a legal partner who understands both the technology and the unique regulatory, operational, and clinical environment in which health care organizations operate. Baker Donelson's integrated team provides the practical guidance you need to deploy AI responsibly, mitigate risk, and stay ahead of evolving compliance requirements. Contact us to learn how we can support your organization's AI initiatives.