Hartford HealthCare Launches Center for AI Innovation

Hartford HealthCare has launched its Center for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Innovation in Healthcare, one of a handful of such centers in the United States set to pursue AI research and development in an effort to improve clinical care.

The health system will collaborate with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, and other stakeholders to bolster healthcare AI advancements.

"AI stands poised to profoundly reshape healthcare delivery, impacting access, affordability, equity and excellence,” said Barry Stein, MD, Hartford HealthCare's chief clinical innovation officer and leader of the Center, in the press release. “Hartford HealthCare is uniquely positioned to continue defining the next frontier of AI in healthcare by unlocking its full potential in a trustworthy and responsible way.”

Leadership also underscored that the health system provides the ideal infrastructure for AI innovation.

“As we transform healthcare, we are taking new approaches to innovation. This center is poised to unlock the full potential of AI, ensuring that every algorithm is not just intelligent, but empathetic and ethical,” explained Jeffrey A. Flaks, president and chief executive officer at Hartford HealthCare. “We are committed to pioneering safe, effective and affordable solutions that revolutionize patient care while advancing clinicians’ expertise.”

The Center for AI Innovation in Healthcare’s work will be guided by its five foundational elements: collaboration and partnership; research and innovation; trustworthiness; education; and invention.

The initiative will also build upon Hartford HealthCare’s previous efforts in the health AI space.

“Years of fostering an innovation mindset have accelerated Hartford HealthCare’s portfolio of AI-related activities and capabilities,” Stein noted.

In recent years, the health system has undertaken a host of AI-related projects, such as optimizing nurse scheduling and operating room efficiency. Hartford HealthCare has also pursued multiple predictive analytics efforts to forecast COVID-19 related events, hospital length of stay, patient deterioration, transcatheter aortic valve surgery outcomes, secondary stroke events, and joint replacement surgery outcomes.

In collaboration with leadership from MIT-Sloan, Hartford HealthCare Innovation also launched a startup called Holistic Hospital Optimization (H2O), which uses AI to streamline hospital operations and patient flow.

“Hartford HealthCare’s Center for AI Innovation in Healthcare is a beacon of hope and progress, illuminating the path toward a future where AI empowers healthcare professionals, enhances patient experiences and ultimately saves lives,” stated Ajay Kumar, MD, Hartford HealthCare’s chief clinical officer. “This is not merely an initiative. It is a declaration of intent — a commitment to lead the charge in shaping a future where healthcare thrives on the transformative power of AI.”

As AI continues to generate hype in healthcare, industry stakeholders are increasingly working together to help navigate the technology’s potential and pitfalls.

In October, over 30 healthcare organizations founded the Vision, Alignment, Learning, Implementation, and Dissemination of Validated Generative AI in Healthcare (VALID AI) collaborative, which aims to explore generative AI’s potential to advance clinical care and medical research.

VALID AI brings together a group of healthcare payers, providers, nonprofit organizations, and research and technology organizations to establish a “collaborative AI sandbox” to bolster integration, validation, and implementation efforts across healthcare.