The development of artificial intelligence (AI) for health care has created both opportunities and challenges worldwide. In the Philippines, where healthcare resources are often constrained and digital infrastructure varies significantly between urban and rural settings, the introduction of AI raises critical questions about professional identity, job security, clinical autonomy, and patient safety.

Existing international literature suggests that healthcare professionals’ attitudes toward AI range from enthusiastic acceptance to strong resistance, influenced by factors including technological literacy, professional experience, organizational support, and cultural values. However, limited research exists on how Filipino healthcare workers perceive and respond to AI integration.

This research addresses the urgent need to understand these perceptions before large-scale AI implementation proceeds. Without such understanding, healthcare institutions risk poor adoption rates, workflow disruptions, and potential harm to patient care quality. By identifying specific concerns, knowledge gaps, and acceptance factors among Filipino healthcare professionals, this study will enable evidence-based policy interventions that facilitate smoother, more equitable AI integration.

The flagship project of the Program on Health System Development is the Philippine Primary Care Studies (PPCS), a series of quasi-experimental pilot studies in representative settings in the Philippines: corporate, rural, and geographically isolated disadvantaged areas or GIDA. The main intervention is a set of primary care health system enhancements in the areas of primary care financing, medical and financial information systems, health human resource capacity building, public and private health care provider network formation, and community engagement. The interventions were implemented in the urban, rural and remote sites.

The flagship project of the PHSD is the Philippine Primary Care Studies (PPCS) with three sites: UP Health Service, the Rural Health Unit (RHU) in Samal, Bataan, and the Rural Health Unit (RHU) in Bulusan, Sorsogon.

The PPCS is a series of quasi-experimental pilot studies in representative settings in the Philippines: corporate, rural, and geographically isolated disadvantaged areas (GIDAs). 

PHSD will also conduct studies, surveys, and data mining on health systems enhancements and outcome measures such as patient satisfaction, knowledge and quality of primary care, financial risk protection, and administrative efficiency.

The PPCS evaluates the shift toward comprehensive universal social health insurance-funded primary care system across eight main outcome areas:

• • Utilization of benefits;
  • Patient satisfaction;
  • Health care provider satisfaction;
  • Health care worker knowledge;
  • Quality of care;
  • Health outcomes;
  • Financial risk protection; and
  • Administration and governance.

The studies also focus on six workstreams in strengthening primary care:

• • Workforce development;
  • Public–private partnerships;
  • Financing;
  • Community engagement;
  • Health information systems; and
  • Monitoring and evaluation.

View the Term Reports from 2018 to 2022 for a list of PHSD programs and activities, which include meetings, webinars, and/or publications (forthcoming or already published).