VP&S Advances Health Care Through AI Innovation
In June, the Center for Innovation in Imaging Biomarkers and Integrated Diagnostics (CIMBID) at Columbia University officially launched with a daylong series of presentations and events that showcased the new center’s broad expertise in leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and biomedical imaging data for personalized medicine.
Led by Despina Kontos, PhD, CIMBID is a multidisciplinary center designed to advance research, education, and clinical translation in AI-driven imaging biomarkers and integrated diagnostics. Dr. Kontos shared her vision for the center, which brings together experts from multiple schools and departments at Columbia, with the goal of bridging technological innovation and clinical application, ensuring that advances translate meaningfully into real-world patient care.
AI has the potential to help providers make faster, safer, and more informed decisions. In addition to efforts through CIMBID, that promise is already being realized throughout VP&S through a range of clinical tools, such as an earlywarning system that decreases risk of in-hospital mortality and a tool for guiding safer infant spinal taps. Building on this momentum, VP&S has launched the AI at VP&S Initiative, bringing together an interdisciplinary team of experts who are positioned to be global leaders in AIdriven innovation within health care.
“There’s a real sense of urgency to rapidly integrate AI into research and clinical care,” said Noémie Elhadad, PhD, chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics and the leader of the AI at VP&S Initiative. “But at the same time, AI still feels nebulous for a lot of people. So we felt the need to take a step back, reflect on how best to harness AI, and how VP&S, CUIMC, and Columbia can lead in translating its potential into tangible impact for patients and health care systems.”
While the AI at VP&S Initiative officially launched this year, six working groups—clinical care, research, oversight and governance, operations, training and education, and community health—had already been meeting for months to develop guidelines on the responsible use of AI at VP&S and exploring ways to use AI across the school’s missions.
AI and Clinical Care
Clinicians want access to accurate and safe AI tools to speed up administrative work and improve patient care, said Timothy Crimmins, MD, associate professor of medicine, chief medical information officer at ColumbiaDoctors, and lead of the AI at VP&S clinical care working group.
Teams from multiple University departments— including radiology, neurology, and ophthalmology—demonstrated tools that can improve clinical decision-making. Columbia’s portal to ChatGPT Education is HIPAA-compliant, and with permission, Columbia researchers and clinicians can enter protected health information. “It’s important that we don’t become over-reliant on AI or let AI overrule or undermine the decisions we make with our patients,” Dr. Crimmins said.
AI in Research
The research working group, led by Dr. Elhadad, is focused on advancing the scientific foundations of AI in health care and exploring novel methodologies to push the boundaries of what AI can do to accelerate discoveries. It also aims to facilitate and foster collaborations within the Columbia community and beyond.
AI in Medical Education
The training and education working group is reimagining the medical school curriculum and providing medical students with the skills they need to leverage AI tools.
For example, medical students can enter symptoms into ChatGPT and ask for a differential diagnosis. “There is a process of coming up with a differential diagnosis that we teach in medical school,” said Lauren Richter, MD, assistant professor of biomedical informatics and pediatrics, who leads the training and education working group with Anhphan Ly, senior director of the Center for Education, Research, and Evaluation. “Using AI tools like this requires helping students evaluate what ChatGPT does: Is this a valid differential or not? How does it compare with a clinical expert?”
Business Processes
The AI at VP&S Initiative is also working to introduce AI to speed up business processes across the campus and make routine work more efficient.
“Some members of the group have used AI to slash the time it takes to complete some processes from hours to minutes,” said Namita Azad, senior director of organizational development-transformation, who is part of the operations working group leadership.
Ms. Azad said the group is beginning to provide training to more staff. “We want to ensure that everyone understands what we mean when we say generative AI, or prompt engineering, and we’ve given them access to CU-GPT to start creating ideas about how we can use AI in our different business units.”
Future Plans
The initiative has held several events and is planning more to help researchers, clinicians, staff, and students connect with each other and learn to use AI.
“To me, one of the exciting things about AI at VP&S is there’s so much happening already,” Dr. Elhadad said.