Mount Sinai leans into AI with new research center
The interdisciplinary center will combine AI with data science and genomics in a location at the center of its Manhattan hospital.
Photo: Laurence Dutton/Getty Images
Mount Sinai Health System in New York is embracing artificial intelligence with the recently announced opening of the Hamilton and Amabel James Center for Artificial Intelligence and Human Health, which is dedicated to the research and development of AI tools and technologies.
The interdisciplinary center will combine AI with data science and genomics in a location at the center of Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. The facility will initially house approximately 40 "principal investigators," alongside 250 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, computer scientists and support staff.
The center was made possible in part by a gift – which the health system did not disclose – from Hamilton Evans "Tony" James, executive vice chairman of the Manhattan-based investment firm Blackstone, and his wife, Amabel.
WHAT'S THE IMPACT?
To construct the new AI center, Mount Sinai modernized an existing building to meet modern standards, including updating the facade to align with the aesthetic of other campus buildings.
Within the 12 floors of the center, eight will be dedicated to Mount Sinai's AI initiatives, the health system said.
Those core facilities include The Windreich Department of AI and Human Health, which focuses on creating an "AI Fabric" that will integrate machine learning and AI-driven decision-making throughout the system's hospitals.
They also include the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai, formed in 2019 through a collaboration with the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering in Germany, which aims to enhance capabilities in data science, biomedical and digital engineering, machine learning, AI and wearable technology.
The Institute for Genomic Health and Division of Medical Genetics is another, and leads the effort to harness the power of genomic discovery to develop new ways to prevent and treat diseases, including cancers, heart problems and genetic disorders. The Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Institute, focused on the use of multimodality imaging for brain, heart and cancer research is also considered a core facility in this effort.
Rounding out the list is the Institute for Personalized Medicine, which launched the human genome-sequencing research project called the Mount Sinai Million Health Discoveries Program. That program aims to enroll one million racially and ethnically diverse patients, advance precision medicine research, and improve patient care.
THE LARGER TREND
Last year, Mount Sinai researchers developed a new artificial intelligence model designed for electrocardiogram analysis. The approach could vastly improve the efficacy and accuracy of ECG assessment, according to the health system, as the model enables interpretation of cardiac readings as language.
Mount Sinai said more 100 million electrocardiograms are performed each year in the U.S. – but that ECG's usefulness is limited since it's difficult for physicians to identify by sight certain patterns representative of disease.
Jeff Lagasse is editor of Healthcare Finance News.
Email: jlagasse@himss.org
Healthcare Finance News is a HIMSS Media publication.
