Toespraak van de Koningin ter gelegenheid van het Derde Symposium van de Koninginde Koningin

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this third symposium which I am hosting in collaboration with Belgium’s Royal Academies of Medicine. It continues the series I launched in 2022, addressing mental health in young people and the elderly. Now we turn to artificial intelligence in healthcare.

Through my work as United Nations Advocate for Sustainable Development Goals, I know that medicine does not stand on its own. Health is closely connected to scientific and technological developments, but also to education, equal opportunities, social inclusion, and sustainable development. We can only address these complex societal challenges by working together across disciplines, sectors, and borders.

Artificial intelligence offers remarkable opportunities. In recent months, I have visited several Belgian hospitals and research institutes to gain a better understanding of how artificial intelligence is already transforming clinical practice. It can help us analyse the ever-growing quantity of medical information. It can contribute to earlier and more accurate diagnoses. Artificial intelligence can also take over certain repetitive tasks, giving healthcare professionals more time for what remains essential: listening to patients, understanding their needs and caring for them.

These visits have been invaluable: they have allowed me to observe concrete applications of AI in pathology, radiology and clinical decision support, and to hear directly from healthcare professionals about both the benefits and the concerns these technologies raise. What I have seen confirms the great potential of artificial intelligence.

I have also had the opportunity to meet students across engineering and health professions, and to appreciate the importance of introducing AI education at an early stage in all fields of patient care.

Based on these different contacts, I can say that Belgium is well placed to contribute to these developments. We have excellent universities, hospitals and research centres. We have extensive expertise in medicine, engineering, computer science, and artificial intelligence itself. And we have a healthcare system based on solidarity and broad access to care. We must make full use of these strengths.

Yet significant challenges remain.

Firstly, fragmentation.

One potential obstacle is that efforts relating to AI sometimes take place in separate silos. Research groups develop similar applications without being sufficiently aware of each other’s work. Universities, hospitals, and companies possess valuable expertise and data, but struggle to connect them. Communication between hospitals and primary care can be challenging. Even within hospitals, medical departments, IT teams, and administrative services sometimes work with different systems and priorities. As a result, promising research projects may remain confined to a single institution or a small-scale pilot and struggle to find their way into everyday healthcare.

Secondly, the tension between sharing and protecting.

Health data are particularly sensitive and must be carefully protected. They are therefore often deliberately stored within separate, secure environments. The challenge is to develop ways in which knowledge and artificial-intelligence models can be safely shared and used across these boundaries, without compromising patients’ privacy and rights.

There are other inter-connected challenges: Who is represented in the data used to train AI? Who has access to these new technologies? Who is involved in designing them? And who is at risk of being left behind? We all know about so-called technology gaps: the gap between generations and between people with and without access to the latest technology. These are fundamental questions for our relations with what we call the global south.

Europe has made an important choice to emphasize ethics, fundamental rights, safety, and human responsibility. This is sometimes portrayed as a limitation compared with regions where new technologies can be introduced more rapidly. But I believe it is a strength. Since August, the European Union imposes transparency obligations on all healthcare institutions. Patients must now be clearly informed when they are interacting with an AI system, because transparency is not a constraint, it is a foundation of trust.

The challenge is to create space for scientific and technological progress while at the same time ensuring that this progress remains safe, fair and centred on people.

Thirdly, and most fundamentally, the human dimension.

Will increasing use of technology widen the distance between patients and healthcare professionals, or will it instead free up more time and attention for the patient?

These 3 concerns are shared at international level. I was at the general assembly of the United Nations in New York 10 days ago and I took part in 2 sessions specifically devoted to digital technology. The common perception is that it could potentially contribute to progress but it needs to be regulated and inclusive.

Young doctors and other healthcare professionals in training will practise their professions in a world in which artificial intelligence is prominently present. They must learn how to use these new tools, but also how to assess AI-generated data critically and, when necessary, set them aside. It is therefore important that young doctors continue to master the art of medicine in its fullest sense: observing carefully, listening, reasoning clinically, communicating, and taking responsibility.

My underlying concern is clear: how do we ensure that people remain central?

Medicine is not about data or algorithms, but about people. Doctors remain responsible for the care they provide, and patients must remain involved in decisions about their own health.

AI is a tool to support doctors. It cannot and must not replace doctors or other medical staff.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This symposium gives us the opportunity to address these questions. We have brought together people with very diverse areas of expertise; clinicians, researchers, engineers, policymakers, patients.  We look forward to hearing your insights and your interactions so as to connect different perspectives, learn from one another, and identify concrete ways forward.

Artificial intelligence offers remarkable possibilities. We should approach them with curiosity and ambition. But technology alone will not determine the future of our healthcare. That future will depend on our willingness and ability to work together, across disciplinary boundaries.

If we succeed in doing so, artificial intelligence can help us make healthcare more accurate and more efficient, while maintaining our commitment to accessibility, inclusiveness and humanity.

I wish you stimulating and fruitful discussions.

Thank you.