The ELSA Way: A community-driven knowledge platform for responsible medical AI
Abstract
Issue: Responsible AI development in healthcare requires integrating ethical, legal, and societal (ELSA) considerations throughout the AI lifecycle. Across research, ample expertise has been built, yet much remains tacit, held in people and projects, locked in publications, or expressed in language inaccessible to developers, policymakers, and communities. No shared, practical infrastructure exists to capture and disseminate this knowledge.
Description: We propose a protocol for The ELSA Way, a freely accessible knowledge platform inspired by The Turing Way. The protocol describes the design, content scope, and governance model of The ELSA Way, and integrates research conducted with AI developers, healthcare professionals, and patients (including surveys, interviews, and co-creation workshops) to ground content development.
Objectives: 1) make explicit and disseminate tacit ELSA knowledge; 2) translate research findings into practical guidance; 3) create extensible infrastructure applicable across responsible AI initiatives and domains.
Results: Initial content grounded in ELSA research is under development, including frameworks, case studies, and worked examples. User and contributor needs, design priorities, and governance principles have been identified through an inquiry. The community-driven model generates added value beyond any single lab’s capacity: aggregating cross-domain ELSA expertise, reducing duplication of efforts, and creating a shared language for responsible AI based in diverse real-world contexts.
Lessons: Tacit knowledge externalisation requires dedicated infrastructures. Open science tools lower barriers to contributions. Community contribution and governance are essential for quality and sustainability. These lessons are embedded in the protocol, which is intended to be transferable to any AI domain where ELSA expertise risks remaining inaccessible, and is designed to be adopted, adapted, or co-developed by the research community and society.
Key messages: • Knowledge on responsible AI in healthcare remains largely tacit and inaccessible. A practical knowledge infrastructure is needed to make ELSA knowledge explicit and usable beyond academia.
• The ELSA Way is an open, community-driven platform bringing together knowledge and translating research findings into accessible guidance for responsible AI development across sectors and countries.
Related
- Ensuring Safe and Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Imaging: Pitfalls and Practical Solutions through the Lens of Obstetric Ultrasound.
- Generative artificial intelligence in the preparation of scientific medical articles on surgery: principles of responsible use and current requirements of editorial organisations
- Two-Year Knowledge Retention After a Short Online Palliative Care Intervention for Medical Students: A Controlled Experimental Study
- Health checkup profile before age 65 and long-term care needs: a retrospective analysis of the Fukuoka-City Information Platform for Community-based Integrated Care
- Medical Students’ Knowledge, Awareness, and Behaviors Regarding Food, Dietary Supplement, and Drug Interactions Across Academic Years
BibTeX
@article{ferreira2026elsa,
title = {{The ELSA Way: A community-driven knowledge platform for responsible medical AI}},
author = {P Pita Ferreira and S De Klerk and S Warmelink and H Oldenhuis and C Lamoth and M Plantinga},
journal = {The European Journal of Public Health},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.1212},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.1212},
note = {CC BY-NC 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - The ELSA Way: A community-driven knowledge platform for responsible medical AI
AU - P Pita Ferreira
AU - S De Klerk
AU - S Warmelink
AU - H Oldenhuis
AU - C Lamoth
AU - M Plantinga
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
JO - The European Journal of Public Health
DO - 10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.1212
UR - https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.1212
AB - Issue: Responsible AI development in healthcare requires integrating ethical, legal, and societal (ELSA) considerations throughout the AI lifecycle. Across research, ample expertise has been built, yet much remains tacit, held in people and projects, locked in publications, or expressed in language inaccessible to developers, policymakers, and communities. No shared, practical infrastructure exists to capture and disseminate this knowledge. Description: We propose a protocol for The ELSA Way, a freely accessible knowledge platform inspired by The Turing Way. The protocol describes the design, content scope, and governance model of The ELSA Way, and integrates research conducted with AI developers, healthcare professionals, and patients (including surveys, interviews, and co-creation workshops) to ground content development. Objectives: 1) make explicit and disseminate tacit ELSA knowledge; 2) translate research findings into practical guidance; 3) create extensible infrastructure applicable across responsible AI initiatives and domains. Results: Initial content grounded in ELSA research is under development, including frameworks, case studies, and worked examples. User and contributor needs, design priorities, and governance principles have been identified through an inquiry. The community-driven model generates added value beyond any single lab’s capacity: aggregating cross-domain ELSA expertise, reducing duplication of efforts, and creating a shared language for responsible AI based in diverse real-world contexts. Lessons: Tacit knowledge externalisation requires dedicated infrastructures. Open science tools lower barriers to contributions. Community contribution and governance are essential for quality and sustainability. These lessons are embedded in the protocol, which is intended to be transferable to any AI domain where ELSA expertise risks remaining inaccessible, and is designed to be adopted, adapted, or co-developed by the research community and society. Key messages: • Knowledge on responsible AI in healthcare remains largely tacit and inaccessible. A practical knowledge infrastructure is needed to make ELSA knowledge explicit and usable beyond academia. • The ELSA Way is an open, community-driven platform bringing together knowledge and translating research findings into accessible guidance for responsible AI development across sectors and countries.
SN - 1101-1262
SN - 1464-360X
ER -