Readiness Gaps in Malaysia's AI Healthcare Roadmap: Education, Ethics, and Equity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37253/combines.v6i1.12779Keywords:
artificial intelligence, medical education, physician–industry relationships, social resilience, healthcare governanceAbstract
Malaysia's National AI Roadmap (2021- 2025) has concluded, and the AI Technology Action Plan 2026–2030 names health among its top priorities. Clinical adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), however, has outpaced professional readiness. This paper reviews evidence across three linked readiness gaps: the near-absence of AI competencies in Malaysian medical curricula, conflicts of interest between clinicians and AI vendors that pharmaceutical-era disclosure rules cannot capture, and algorithmic inequity affecting communities under-represented in health data. We propose an Integrated AI Readiness Framework (IARF) that translates each gap into a specific institutional requirement: an AI-competency standard within Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) accreditation, an AI-vendor conflict-of-interest clause from the Malaysian Medical Council, and an AI Health Equity Board under the Ministry of Health. Grounded in the Malaysian system, the framework is transferable to other middle-income ASEAN health systems.
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