Emory Launches AI Health Institute to Improve Health Equity

Emory University has established the Emory Empathetic AI for Health Institute as part of its AI.Humanity initiative, with the goal of utilizing AI and big data to revolutionize global healthcare. The institute's focus includes discerning health data patterns, making predictions, and enhancing patient outcomes in various health conditions such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. A key objective is to reduce bias in AI-driven precision medicine, particularly for minority patients, to advance health equity. Areas of emphasis encompass brain health, oncology, cardiology, diabetes, global health, immunology, pediatrics, women's health, and veteran's health.

The institute is led by Anant Madabhushi, an expert in AI, radiomics, and medical image analysis, and its vision is to provide proactive and personalized healthcare for all individuals. Collaboration with experts from Emory, the Atlanta VA Medical Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, and others is central to the development of accessible and equitable AI tools for healthcare. Additionally, Emory's AI.Humanity initiative is hiring up to 60 new faculty members in various disciplines, including health, law, business, and ethics, to further support the institute's mission.

Emory AI.Health recognizes the urgent need to develop dedicated AI-based risk-prediction models for minority patients, as studies have shown that personalized precision medicine is superior to one-size-fits-all approaches but can exacerbate disparities due to a lack of diversity in clinical trials. The institute believes that AI-informed precision medicine can reduce costs and eliminate the need for invasive biopsies, offering significant benefits to underserved populations locally, nationally, and globally. The institute's location in Atlanta, with its healthcare innovation hub and extensive network of researchers and data resources, provides a strong foundation for its activities.