The frameworks¶
This tool tracks two governance frameworks for healthcare AI. They were written for different purposes by different people, and they ask different questions.
| CHAI | OPTICA | |
|---|---|---|
| Published by | Coalition for Health AI (US, multi-stakeholder non-profit) | Clalit Health Services (Israel), in NEJM AI |
| Shape | 6 lifecycle stages, 4 checkpoints, 5 principles | 13 chapters, 4 domains, 7 stages, 5 stakeholders |
| Items here | 41 criteria | 77 items |
| Core question | Is this being built and run responsibly, continuously? | Should this organization adopt this solution? |
| Spans | The whole lifecycle, including live monitoring | Adoption decision, including plans for what follows |
| Organized by | Time — what happens when | People — who answers what, in what order |
| Ends with | A recurring periodic review | A completed dossier for an approving authority |
What WHO reported
In June 2026 the WHO Regional Office for Europe published a report that presents four complementary approaches to evaluating AI solutions. OPTICA and CHAI are two of them. See Does any of this work? for what that report says, and for the evidence that is still missing.
The difference that matters¶
CHAI is longitudinal. It assumes the solution is yours for its whole life and keeps asking the same five principles at every stage, including long after deployment. Its final checkpoint recurs forever.
OPTICA is a decision. It is completed once, before adoption, by five named stakeholders in dependency order, and handed to the body that approves the purchase. Its last four chapters still concern deployment and monitoring — but they ask for plans, assessed at decision time, not for evidence that monitoring is running.
This is why the two compose rather than compete, and it is the basis of the unified checklist.
Licensing differs too, and it constrains what is on this site¶
| Source | License | What that permits here |
|---|---|---|
| CHAI responsible-ai-content | CC BY 4.0 | Quotable with attribution |
| CHAI Applied Model Card template | Not consistent across CHAI's files: CC BY-ND 4.0 (documentation PDF), a permissive license (mc-schema), "All rights reserved" (registry); unresolved |
Field names used. Confirm the terms with CHAI or counsel before distributing a modified card |
| OPTICA paper (NEJM AI) | © 2024 Massachusetts Medical Society, "personal use only" | Paraphrase only — no verbatim reproduction |
Both checklists on this site are therefore written in original wording. See Notice & license.