Mount Sinai Health Announces New Center for AI and Human Health
Mount Sinai Health System has opened the Hamilton and Amabel James Center for Artificial Intelligence and Human Health at the Icahn School of Medicine to foster collaboration among multiple programs aimed at improving healthcare through the research, development and application of Artificial intelligence tools and technologies.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
By bringing these programs under one roof and better integrating research and data, Mount Sinai aims to advance AI-powered medical discoveries. The new center will create an optimal environment for researchers to deepen their understanding, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases, leaders of health care systems and medical schools said Monday.
Mount Sinai, one of New York City’s largest academic medical systems, said its new 65,000-square-foot AI research facility will be located on eight of the 12 floors of a repurposed building centrally located on its Manhattan campus.
The Hamilton and Amabel James Center for AI and Human Health will house approximately 40 principal investigators and 250 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, computer scientists and support staff, including the Windreich Department of AI and Human Health, the health system said.
While the medical school has led AI research and development in U.S. healthcare, it is among the first to establish a dedicated AI research center, said Dr. Eric Nestler, MD, director of the Friedman Brain Institute, dean for academic and scientific matters. at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the chief scientific officer at the Mount Sinai Health System.
“By integrating AI technology into genomics, imaging, pathology, electronic health records and more, Mount Sinai is revolutionizing physicians’ ability to diagnose and treat patients, redefining the future of healthcare shaped,” he said in a statement.
“If we want to use artificial intelligence for the greater good and make significant progress in healthcare, investing in AI research and development within academic institutions is essential,” said Dr. Dennis S. Charney, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of Icahn Mount Sinai and the Health System’s President for Academic Affairs.
The school’s AI and Health Department has several ongoing collaborations, partnerships and institutions across the healthcare system, including one that is creating an AI Fabric for the integration of machine learning and AI-driven decision making across the healthcare system’s eight hospitals, Mount Sinai said .
The new Center for AI and Human Health will also house the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai, the Institute for Genomic Health and Department of Medical Genetics, Biomedical Engineering and Imaging and the Institute for Personalized Medicine.
THE BIG TREND
Mount Sinai has been exploring various ways AI could address healthcare delivery modalities, from analyzing surgical videos to streamlining administrative tasks in hospitals.
In April, Mount Sinai researchers evaluated the potential application of large language models to automate medical coding, comparing LLMs from OpenAI, Google, and Meta. After assessing whether they could effectively match the appropriate medical codes with the corresponding official text descriptions, the researchers found them unsuitable for medical coding work.
As the healthcare system continues to implement certain applications of AI models, Dr. Bruce Darrow, the healthcare system’s chief medical information officer and former interim chief digital officer, told Healthcare IT news in June that all Mount Sinai applications will soon include AI.
“Just about every piece of software that we use at Mount Sinai, if it doesn’t already have AI built into it, I can expect AI to be built into it in the next three to five years. That technology is continuing,” he said.
Then, in September, Mount Sinai appointed Lisa S. Stump to the CDIO post and dean for information technology at the medical school to bridge the clinical, educational and research missions.
The health care system said its first task would be to plan and develop a comprehensive enterprise digital ecosystem that will improve collaboration between providers and researchers and work to integrate new technologies such as AI.
ON THE RECORD
“As AI technology evolves rapidly, this moment is critical to maintaining leadership in digital health,” Nestler said in a statement about the new AI center.
“While large technology companies have significant funding and resources to access high-quality equipment, they do not have access to a healthcare system, limiting their progress in this area,” Charney said.
Andrea Fox is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.