The digitization of health information, together with the advancement of Data Mining techniques and the underlying storage and processing technology, continue to accumulate the potential for transformation in the health sector by registering massive amounts of information about patients that allows creating a holistic vision of the health of each individual.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents a collection of multiple techniques that allow machines to solve complex tasks by interacting with the environment in a circle of feedback that we can define as learning. Both the definition of AI and its border are in continuous progress. At a very general level, AI techniques can be classified in two groups: those that follow a deterministic strategy (rule-based systems) and those that follow a statistical strategy (systems that use domain-independent algorithms to analyse data and obtain knowledge from the data). This last group has experienced a more significant boom during the last decade in multiple sectors of activity.

However, the liberation of transforming potential in a sector as critical and complex as that of health entails many difficulties. In the case of Artificial Intelligence (AI) the true transforming potential lies in going beyond concept tests and very specific application cases, although on the other hand these are necessary during the maturation process.

In this sense, the Department of Health of Catalonia has recently published the Master Plan of Information Systems of the SISCAT (Sistema Sanitari Integral d’ultilització pública de Catalunya) with the main objective of guiding the development of information systems and technologies to support the achievement of the objectives of the 2016-2020 Health Plan.

The document has been developed collaboratively among a broad representation of the Health, Technology and Information Systems sectors of Catalonia. The SISCAT Master Plan is structured in a set of 15 strategic initiatives that have articulated 15 multidisciplinary working groups through a model of participatory debate.

From the UOC-BSA Chair we have led the working group corresponding to IA (Identification and use of AI techniques and tools) and we have participated in the Analytical group (Design of the SICAT analytical repository).

For us it has been a great personal and professional experience, in which we have been able to verify the dynamism of the sector and to contrast once more the validity and potential of the central axis of activity of the Chair.