THE IMMORTAL LEGACY
In 1951, a young Black mother named Henrietta Lacks sought treatment for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Without her knowledge or consent, doctors took a sample of her cancerous cells—cells that would prove "immortal" and revolutionize modern medicine. Her HeLa cells enabled breakthroughs from polio vaccines to cancer treatments, generating billions in medical profits while her family remained unaware and uncompensated for decades.
The Meaning Behind the Name
Henrietta's story represents medicine's foundational ethical breach: progress achieved without consent, transparency, or equity. Today, clinical AI systems risk repeating this history at scale—encoding biases in diagnosis algorithms, treatment recommendations, and triage systems that disproportionately harm marginalized patients while operating as inscrutable "black boxes."
The HENRIETTA Standard™ transforms her legacy from one of exploitation to one of protection. We ensure that algorithmic medical progress is inextricably linked with justice, consent, and equity—building systems where every patient's dignity is preserved in code.
THE HENRIETTA STANDARD™
The Architecture for Equitable Care.
The permanent legal, equitable, and ethical framework for clinical AI, diagnostics, and patient triage.
Holistic
Ethical
Navigation of
Racial
Inequities in
Emerging Technologies for
Treatment &
Triage
Applications
THE NEW STANDARD OF CARE: GOVERNED ALGORITHMS
THREE-PHASE HEALTHCARE EQUITY PROTOCOL
PHASE 1: THE DIAGNOSTIC
AI KARENx™ Neutralization Protocol for Clinical Algorithms
We conduct independent audits to detect and neutralize hidden biases in your clinical AI systems—identifying diagnostic, treatment, and triage patterns that lead to discriminatory patient harm and misdiagnosis across demographic groups.
PHASE 2: THE PROVENANCE FRAMEWORK
The COPERNICUS Canon™ for Healthcare Data Integrity
We install verified data provenance as the foundation of your clinical AI, ensuring algorithms are trained on legitimate, representative, and ethically sourced medical data—preventing the encoding of historical healthcare disparities into future medical decisions.
PHASE 3: THE CONSENT ARCHITECTURE
The HENRIETTA Standard™ Implementation
We build the permanent legal and ethical frameworks that provide continuous governance for AI-driven healthcare—ensuring algorithmic systems operate with transparency, patient consent, and systematic accountability across diagnosis, treatment, and triage decisions.
GOVERNANCE PILLARS FOR THE HENRIETTA STANDARD™
Governance Pillar 1: Clinical Equity Assurance
This pillar governs the development and deployment of AI used in diagnosis, treatment recommendations, and patient risk stratification.
Representative Data Validation:
We establish and enforce protocols to audit training data for demographic representativeness, ensuring algorithms are built on data that reflects the entire patient population.
Diagnostic Fairness Certification:
We implement continuous monitoring to validate that diagnostic accuracy and model performance are consistent across all racial, ethnic, and gender groups.
Informed Consent Integration:
We govern how AI-derived insights are presented to both clinicians and patients, ensuring transparency and upholding the principle of informed consent in the age of algorithmic medicine.
Governance Pillar 2: Triage & Resource Allocation Integrity
This pillar provides the framework for governing AI systems that prioritize patient care, allocate resources, or manage hospital operations.
Disparate Impact Monitoring:
We define and track key equity metrics to ensure triage algorithms and resource allocation models do not systematically disadvantage any demographic group.
Clinical Oversight Protocols:
We install mandatory governance requiring human-in-the-loop review for AI-driven triage recommendations that could lead to significant changes in patient care pathways.
Bias Drift Detection:
We implement systems to continuously monitor for "model drift," where an algorithm's performance becomes increasingly biased over time as it encounters new data.
WHO SHOULD STEWARD THIS NEW STANDARD OF CARE?
Building a Defensible Future for Healthcare
The HENRIETTA Standard™ provides the essential legal and ethical architecture for the entire healthcare ecosystem, ensuring that innovation serves every patient equitably.
Hospital Systems & Network Providers:
To de-risk the adoption of clinical AI, protect against discriminatory harm lawsuits, and build patient trust by certifying that your diagnostic and triage algorithms provide consistent, high-quality care across all demographics.
Health Insurance Providers & Payors:
To ensure the AI tools used for claims adjudication, prior authorization, and risk modeling do not perpetuate coverage disparities, thereby fulfilling your obligations under non-discrimination laws and building member confidence.
Health Tech Companies & AI Developers:
To embed equity, consent, and accountability into your product's core design from the outset, creating a powerful market differentiator and mitigating the regulatory and reputational risks of launching a biased algorithm.
Pharmaceutical & Medical Device Companies:
To govern the AI used in clinical trial recruitment, patient monitoring, and drug discovery, ensuring these systems do not overlook or underserve diverse populations and that they uphold the highest standards of informed consent.
Government Health Agencies & Public Health Bodies:
To establish a verifiable, defensible standard for algorithmic equity in public health initiatives, from resource allocation to disease surveillance, ensuring that public trust is maintained and health equity goals are met.
UPHOLD THE NEW STANDARD OF CARE
