Cleveland Clinic launches Center for Clinical AI

Cleveland Clinic this month announced it’s launching a Center for Clinical Artificial Intelligence (CCAI) dedicated to the development and application of AI in medicine.

The initiative will be spearheaded by newly appointed Director Aziz Nazha, MD, an associate staff physician at the Taussig Cancer Institute and a former Cleveland Clinic fellow. Nazha was simultaneously named associate medical director for artificial intelligence in Enterprise Analytics, a branch of Cleveland Clinic that’s leading the charge on the CCAI project.

“CCAI will translate AI-based concepts into clinical tools that will improve individual and population health,” Nazha said in a statement.

According to the statement, the center will focus on developing clinical applications for AI and leveraging machine learning to improve diagnostics, disease prediction and treatment planning. A main goal will be creating a platform for collaboration between physicians, researchers, computer scientists and statisticians both nationally and globally, encouraging partnerships between academia and the healthcare industry.

In addition to facilitating collaboration, CCAI will provide programmatic and technological support for other AI initiatives at Cleveland Clinic.

Officials reported a handful of projects are already underway at the new center, including building machine learning models to identify high-risk patients within 72 hours of hospital admission and using AI to predict inpatient length of stay and readmission risk.

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After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.

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