With UF welcoming HiPerGator, one of the fastest artificial intelligence supercomputers in American higher education, and hiring 100 new faculty with experience in the methodology and application of AI tools over the last two years, the renewed energy sparked innovation around how to leverage AI across the health care landscape. As AI continues to become a centerpiece of research endeavors at UF, a team of clinicians, analysts and patient safety experts at the College of Medicine are developing an AI-enabled infrastructure for quality improvement analytics and patient safety at UF Health.

The Office of the Dean provided funding to establish a grants program, Rapid AI Prototyping and Development for Patient Safety, or RAPiDS, an initiative under the value pillar of the college’s strategic plan that functions as the mechanism for developing, testing and advancing innovative AI quality improvement efforts, promoting faculty career development and stimulating external funding.

The first RAPiDS grant cycle, which launched in August, brought teams across UF Health and the College of Medicine together to test a secure data and computing resource remotely accessible by authorized clinical and research teams. The resource, called ALPS — AI Labs for Patient Safety — aims to create an integrated infrastructure and safe space for sensitive analytics, becoming a common place where data coexists in the same spot as a computer capable of handling the data. The ultimate goal of both initiatives is to bring those with clinical expertise and those with data analytics, statistics and technical expertise together to analyze data using AI to improve outcomes.

When a patient’s heart stops, it’s a race against the clock for medical teams to get it pumping again, with every second that passes increasing the chance of permanent damage to the brain and other organs.

Collaborators at UF Health Shands Hospital, including nursing teams, specialists and health providers in the departments of emergency medicine, surgery and anesthesiology at the College of Medicine, will soon officially roll out a new method of addressing cardiac arrest that has already proved to significantly improve the chances of patient revival and full recovery.

“As we keep pushing the needle on bystander CPR aid, every percentage point gained means another person gets a chance to become a candidate for this ECPR therapy and another opportunity to return home to their loved ones,” said Torben K. Becker, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the division of critical care and director of the department of emergency medicine’s global health section.

In 2006, specialists around the country started getting emails from a recent Harvard grad named Eric Wang asking about myotonic dystrophy, an inherited disease that runs in his family.

It wasn’t unusual for them to hear from loved ones of patients hoping for a breakthrough, but this was different. Wang had one question: What do you need to know to find a cure?

His plan: devote his career to filling in the gaps, developing treatments for his dad and millions of others worldwide.

“It’s not common for a talented young person to declare a serious intent to work on myotonic dystrophy,” says Charles Thornton, a neurologist at the University of Rochester who received the email. “In the case of Eric Wang, I am very grateful that he decided to go in this direction.”