Establishing a National Framework for Family Medicine AI Centers of Excellence
Family medicine is at the forefront of responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation. Over the past 4 years, the family of family medicine organizations have built strong foundations in AI education, infrastructure, and capacity. This initiative builds on that work to create a unified framework for advancing excellence in AI across clinical care, education, and research in family medicine.
What's the Goal?
This initiative will establish national criteria and guide the creation of a Family Medicine AI Centers of Excellence recognition program, integrating clinical care, education, and research to advance innovation, equity, and impact.
Project Timeline
What's New?
Next Steps
- We’re inviting feedback from the family medicine community on the draft framework. This early input will shape future iterations and ensure it reflects the diverse needs of family medicine.
- A nationwide environmental scan is underway, engaging 20–30 family medicine departments, selected for their diversity in geography and populations served, as well as AI engagement, gathering insights across all the draft framework domains.
- Insights will inform updates to the framework, development of an AI Playbook, and recognition criteria for FM AI CoEs. Input on these materials will be collected from the family medicine organizations throughout 2026.
- In 2027, a national Family Medicine AI CoE Summit will introduce the first cohort of CoEs and launch a Family Medicine AI Collaborative to support shared learning, mentorship, and sustained engagement in service to all of family medicine.
Family Medicine Artificial Intelligence Centers of Excellence Draft Framework
The first phase of STFM's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Centers of Excellence (CoE) initiative focused on defining what excellence in AI looks like within family medicine. The STFM AI Task Force developed the draft CoE framework grounded in the following foundations:
- The 5 C’s of primary care: First contact, comprehensiveness, continuity, coordination, and community
- The Quintuple Aim: patient experience, population health, cost of care, care team well-being, and health equity
- The 3 pillars of academic family medicine: Clinical care, education, and research
- Leading models from existing health care and industry CoEs
- Insights from family medicine leaders working at the intersection of AI, innovation, and care delivery
Background
AI is reshaping health care at a breakneck pace. From reducing administrative burdens to enabling next-generation clinical decision support, AI is transforming how care is delivered, coordinated, and experienced. Family medicine has been part of this transformation from the start, shaping how AI advances equity, access, and whole-person care.
Over the past 4 years, the family medicine organizations have laid essential groundwork to build AI capacity across the discipline. In 2021, the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) and the Center for Professionalism and Value in Health Care convened an AI summit that brought together early thought leaders to explore opportunities and challenges related to AI in primary care. This catalyzed in 2022 the ABFM Foundation’s “Enterprise AI and Building Long-Term (EnAIBL) Capacity for FM” Initiative, a national collaborative supporting family medicine departments in strengthening the people, infrastructure, and processes needed to harness AI’s potential.
In 2023, through an effort funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and facilitated by ABFM, an AI Bootcamp series launched at the NAPCRG annual meeting. This was followed in 2024 by the development and dissemination of STFM's AI and Machine Learning for Primary Care (AiM-PC) Curriculum. Additional momentum came from the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and Rock Health AI Starfield Summit in May 2025, culminating in a Starfield Report that calls for a formalized “primary care innovation network” for AI.
Aligned with this call, STFM’s AI in Medical Education Task Force — in collaboration with the Association of Departments of Family Medicine (ADFM) and with funding from the ABFM Foundation — is leading a multi-year initiative to establish a national framework for Family Medicine AI Centers of Excellence (CoE). The goal is to help organizations build, sustain, and integrate AI capacity across clinical care, education, and research, not as separate domains, but as integrated capabilities that reflect the breadth and impact of our discipline.
Key Collaborators, Sponsors, and Funders
Funding for this project was provided by the American Board of Family Medicine Foundation.
This project is being implemented in collaboration with the Association of Departments of Family Medicine and Stanford Medicine's Healthcare AI Applied Research Team.
