Emory University Establishes Empathetic AI for Health Institute

Emory University will launch the Emory Empathetic AI for Health Institute (Emory AI.Health) later this month, which will support the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics technologies to improve outcomes for patients with diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other conditions.

The institute will be established under the Emory AI.Humanity initiative, which aims to “shape the AI revolution to better human health, generate economic value, and promote social justice.”

Emory AI.Health is set to contribute to these efforts by bringing together experts from Emory, the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), the Atlanta Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center, and other organizations to develop equitable, accessible, and cost-effective health AI.

“AI will transform society and at Emory, we want to use these powerful technologies to save and improve lives,” said Emory president Gregory L. Fenves, PhD, in the press release. “We see the power AI has to facilitate healing while improving equitable access to health care.”

A core aspect of the institute’s mission is to promote health equity by reducing care costs and increasing care access and quality. This work will initially focus on underserved populations in Atlanta and the surrounding areas.

Part of these efforts will prioritize personalized medicine and precision medicine to close health equity gaps in clinical trials and AI algorithms.

“There is a critical need to develop dedicated AI-based risk-prediction models for minority patients,” explained Anant Madabhushi, PhD, a Robert W. Woodruff professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory and Georgia Institute of Technology, a member of the Cancer Immunology research program at Winship Cancer Institute, and a research career scientist with the Atlanta VA Medical Center.

“The reduction in cost resulting from AI-informed precision medicine, as well as the elimination of the need for invasive biopsies, are even greater boons to underserved and under-resourced populations locally in Atlanta, nationally and globally,” he continued.

Emory AI.Health’s initiative will leverage the university’s network of clinicians, ethicists, and researchers, alongside technical expertise in computer science and machine learning from Georgia Tech and data from Emory Healthcare.

The institute will officially launch at Emory's AI.Health Symposium on November 14 and 15, 2023.

“With the power of AI and precision medicine, we’re stepping into a future where health care is not just reactive, but proactive for everyone, irrespective of their background, to ensure everyone gets the best chance at a healthy life,” Madabhushi stated.

The announcement reflects a growing interest from academic institutions and healthcare organizations to invest more resources into health AI.

Last month, the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis launched the AI for Health Institute in an effort to utilize these advanced technologies to address complex medical issues.

Specifically, the institute is set to assist researchers with designing data-driven tools to characterize complex diseases, support clinical decision-making, and advance precision medicine.

Initially, projects undertaken by research teams at the institute will focus on equity, fairness, and privacy in AI; imaging AI; wearables for healthcare; and natural language processing (NLP) across reproductive healthcare, mental healthcare, telemedicine and critical care, and infectious diseases, among others.