Meet Children’s National’s new Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing healthcare and will shape the future of pediatrics. It can drive efficiency, supercharge research and improve patient outcomes. Harnessing AI safely and ethically takes thoughtful leadership. In June, Alda Mizaku, M.S., became the hospital’s first chief data and AI officer. Previously, she led data engineering and analytics at Mercy Health in St. Louis for 11 years. We asked Mizaku about her work and vision for Children’s National.

Q: What excites you about your new role?

A: I am passionate about the opportunity to leverage technology to create better experiences for children and families. Embracing innovation can help us create more health equity for our community. This is an exciting time in healthcare. I’m committed to leading the way with compassionate and cutting-edge solutions. This includes realizing the full potential of medical data from electronic healthcare records and other sources. AI can help us develop treatment plans tailored specifically for each child. It also can make proactive recommendations to coordinate patient care.

Q: What have you seen AI accomplish in medicine and how do you envision its growth and impact in pediatrics?

A: AI yields helpful insights to understand each patient’s individual needs. It takes complex medical data and makes it more useful. It can help us diagnose disease and improve care coordination for each patient family. AI fits very well into pediatrics because children’s hospitals put a lot of effort into research and development. For example, in rare disease, there’s an emphasis on building models to understand a condition’s genetic composition. AI gives us the opportunity to find solutions and intervene more quickly to change lives. This is the future of pediatric medicine.

Q: How will children’s national use AI to improve patient care?

A: We have been busy creating an enterprise cloud data platform. It will allow us to bring all of the hospital’s data into one place and create one true source of information.
This one-stop shop will make it much easier for our researchers and care providers to access the information they need to make a difference for patients. AI will help with operational efficiencies. It will give us a clearer picture of which units across the institution are busy or have extra capacity. It can recommend ways to eliminate bottlenecks. This reduces wait times and allows us to help more patients.

Q: How can AI help our faculty?

A: The beauty of AI is that it can help faculty focus more on patient care and less on their administrative tasks.
Jessica Herstek, M.D., our chief medical informatics officer, is leading our pilot of an AI-based ambient listening technology that creates notes during patient encounters. The clinician focuses on their patient. Later, they can refine and approve the notes.

Accountability remains important. Just because we’re leveraging technology, it doesn’t remove accountability for staff.
AI assists providers and reinforces their role in care. Medical innovations that leverage AI also can increase their efficiency.
For example, liquid biopsy technologies use AI to study blood samples and detect cancer. This helps patients avoid time-consuming scans and painful traditional biopsies. We can detect disease or its recurrence much earlier in a less invasive way. This enhances care.

Q: What are some challenges we face on the road to implementing AI?

A: Embracing AI systems may involve giving up some comfort in the way that we’ve always done things. It opens up possibilities, but it requires some change. Our challenge is to make sure we have three things in place to create scalable, sustainable solutions. The first is having high-quality, integrated data. The second is collaboration. The third is change management.

We will take an inclusive approach to implementing changes, working side by side with clinical and operational leaders. When we present solutions, it will be collaborative. Comprehensive training also plays a key role. We must address misconceptions about AI’s capabilities and foster a common understanding of its most effective uses.
Our recipe for success will be openness to contributing to better outcomes for our patients.
We need to collect high-quality data consistently across different units. Variations don’t translate well to scalable solutions crucial to generative AI. When we look at the big picture, it’s clear we can come together to provide the best care.

Q: Why is this work important to you?

A: Technology and its capacity to transform lives has always captivated me. Growing up in Albania, my dad led the pharmacy at the local hospital.
Sometimes I would ride in the ambulance when he needed to go to the hospital urgently. I was around 7 years old at the time, and it left a deep impression.
I recognized that each member of the team played a significant role in caring for the patient. This experience inspires my work to this day.