“What Utah’s regulatory review taught us is that stakeholder divergence is not an obstacle to good policy — it represents important signals,” de Lacy said. “When clinicians, patients, technologists, and legislators want different things from the same technology, that tension is telling you something important about the risks and benefits.”
Utah’s review intentionally elevated underrepresented voices, particularly those of people with lived experience, in a policy environment traditionally dominated by professional and institutional stakeholders.
“The professional societies are organized and active in politics, but the people who are actually served, those with lived experience, are so easy to leave out of the conversation. We spoke with adults living independently with mental illness, people in care facilities, the parents of affected children, and others who would not ordinarily be asked and who articulated their own interests very differently from the caregivers. It deeply informed our perspective,” Boyd said.