AI in Healthcare: UCF’s Trailblazing Research and Innovations

UCF’s Pioneering Role in AI-Driven Healthcare Solutions

UCF is using AI to improve healthcare research and practices, with the goal to make healthcare more precise, efficient and effective. UCF has built a strong research infrastructure and attracted world-class talent to drive innovation in AI-driven healthcare solutions.

Researchers from UCF’s engineering, computer science and medicine departments are collaborating to develop AI systems that improve healthcare in various ways. By combining expertise from these fields, the university can address larger healthcare challenges more effectively. Here’s a look at some of the ways UCF is making a difference:

AI in Medical Modeling, Imaging, and Analysis

Medical modeling, imaging and analysis allow healthcare professionals to diagnose and treat patients more effectively by looking at detailed visual representations of the human body. When AI is integrated into this field, it can:

• Rapidly analyze and improve the accuracy of complex scans
• Identify abnormalities that might be missed by the human eye
• Reduce the administrative workload of healthcare professionals
• Create predictive models that help in forecasting the progression of diseases

For example, Professor and Director of the Biomedical Engineering Program Alain Kassab uses bioengineering, AI and 3D modeling to better understand cardiovascular diseases. His lab uses patient-specific modeling to improve diagnoses and surgical planning for children with congenital heart defects. Recently, Kassab collaborated on an injectable shunt powered by the heart’s own energy to reduce the long-term effects of single ventricle circulation. This innovation has the potential to significantly improve the quality of life and survival rates for children with this condition as it offers a less invasive and more sustainable solution for managing heart defects.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing healthcare by enabling more accurate diagnoses, personalized treatments, and streamlined care coordination.

Kassab uses his expertise in both engineering and healthcare has led to significant advancements in AI applications in medical imaging at UCF. Under his supervision and guidance, UCF is able to contribute profoundly to the field of AI in healthcare.

The collaboration between healthcare providers, engineers and computer scientists is what makes the use of AI in healthcare a success at UCF. With AI and simulation, UCF researchers are building the next generation of intelligent tools for medical image analysis. These tools provide much faster, more accurate insights to help diagnose and treat patients.

AI in Patient Monitoring and Healthcare Management

UCF researchers are working on AI systems that can monitor patient health in real time. These technologies will be able to detect issues earlier, which means medical professionals will be able to start treatments sooner.

A key figure in this endeavor at UCF is Assistant Professor Chaithanya Renduchintala from the Rosen College of Hospitality Management. Renduchintala specializes in AI applications in community health.

His work in AI focuses on patient engagement and ensuring that health resources are distributed efficiently. This way, patients can stay involved in their own healthcare, making it easier for them to understand their health and feel more confident speaking to their doctors. His work also explores ways to ensure everyone has access to the healthcare they need.

Under the guidance of experts like Professor Renduchintala, UCF is continually advancing AI in healthcare. By combining strengths across healthcare administration, data science and clinical practice to enhance patient outcomes, they are developing innovative solutions for continuous monitoring and personalized care.

UCF’s commitment to developing innovative AI solutions can help predict health problems before they happen, allowing doctors to provide the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. These tools have the capability to reshape how healthcare is delivered and managed.

AI-driven Drug Discovery and Development

UCF is also accelerating pharmaceutical innovation through AI-powered drug discovery and development initiatives. To achieve this, they have developed AI machine-learning models to help uncover new medications through the process of rapidly screening vast libraries of drug molecules against target diseases. These AI systems can predict the most promising clinical trial candidates, which enables faster and safer drug design.

One of the notable figures working on this at UCF is Assistant Professor, Ozlem Garibay ’01MS ’08PhD, from the Department of Industrial Engineering. Professor Garibay specializes in AI applications in healthcare, particularly in creating drug treatments.

Her work includes the development of the innovative BindingSite-AugmentedDTA model, which enhances the prediction of drug-target interactions. This model represents a significant stride in AI-assisted drug screening technology because it improves not only the predictive accuracy of UCF’s own models but also enhances the performance of other state-of-the-art drug discovery models.

UCF is actively collaborating with pharmaceutical companies and other research institutions to facilitate the ongoing development of AI-driven methodologies in drug discovery and development. Through these collaborations, UCF’s research and innovations find practical applications to accelerate the journey of new drugs from the laboratory to the market.

Active collaboration with pharmaceutical companies and research institutions enhances UCF’s impact on the field. These partnerships help share knowledge and resources, advancing AI-driven methods in drug discovery and development. As a result, UCF’s research leads to practical solutions that speed up the process of bringing new drugs from the lab to the market. Additionally, these AI systems enable robot-driven lab experiments, which could lead to the rapid discovery and development of life-saving medicines.

AI in Medical Healthcare Simulation

Healthcare simulation uses virtual reality and AI to provide hyperrealistic clinician training while accelerating medical research. UCF is leveraging this virtual reality to create realistic training environments for the next generation of healthcare providers.

Take the Virtual Experience Research Accelerator (VERA) led by Greg Welch and Gerd Bruder of UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training, for example. This U.S. National Science Foundation project will facilitate large-scale studies by creating highly realistic immersive experiences through virtual reality (VR) training platforms — it’s a nearly $5-million endeavor. Through the combined use of VR and AI technologies, researchers will be able to analyze how people behave, react and learn in different scenarios.

VERA’s objective is to enable researchers to conduct extensive studies involving diverse participant groups in virtual settings. This approach not only broadens the scope of medical research but also allows for the inclusion of diverse demographic groups, enhancing the generalizability and applicability of the research findings. Through VERA, UCF is setting a new standard in medical simulation, making it more inclusive, detailed, and impactful.

VERA’s objective is to enable researchers to conduct extensive studies with diverse participant groups in virtual settings. This approach will broaden the scope of medical research and include a wider range of demographics. Such inclusivity enhances the relevance and applicability of research findings. Through VERA, UCF is making medical simulation more comprehensive and impactful.

UCF’s fusion of AI, VR simulation and clinician-scientist collaborations provides unmatched opportunities for revolutionizing both medical education and research and development. The hyper-realistic environments and datasets from VERA offer future healthcare professionals a safe and controlled space to hone their skills. This technology not only improves training for doctors but also has the potential to save lives.

Using AI to Improve Health Literacy

Tools like ChatGPT may offer healthcare professionals new ways to efficiently deliver patient education materials. The technology may not only streamline the process but also enhance the clarity of information delivered to patients, improving understanding of their own health conditions and treatment plans and ultimately leading to better health outcomes.

Anyone who has ever walked out of a doctor’s office feeling confused or overwhelmed will appreciate the work Professor Richard Zraick is doing with AI to make patient education more accessible.

“Health literacy surveys have revealed that 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. has difficulty understanding basic health information,” Zraick says.

Zraick is a leading expert and advocate for health literacy in the discipline of communication sciences and disorders. In one of his research mentoring classes this fall, he and his students in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders are exploring whether the AI website ChatGPT can improve how healthcare information is created, conveyed and understood.

The group is gathering existing materials from key websites that address common medical conditions faced by patients with communications disorders — information ranging from hearing loss to swallowing challenges to voice disorders. The content of this material is then entered into ChatGPT using prompts — text-based input, such as a question or instruction. Students develop and refine prompts that seek to simplify the language and apply readability formulas to assess if the new text is more readable — or not.

As the use of AI in healthcare continues to expand, the focus will likely shift toward refining these tools to ensure even greater accuracy and relevance, Zraick says.