Tag Archive for: artificial intelligence

Anthony Sandler, MD, at Axios’ inaugural Future of Health Summit

In the news: Axios’ Future of Health Summit

“Healthcare is moving very fast. And what often happens in adults, also happens in children. Unfortunately, most of the research is directed initially at adults, and then whittles down to children. At Children’s National, we’re trying to turn that around. We’re trying to do research for children that will expand its way up to adults, turning it on its head.”

Anthony Sandler, MD, senior vice president and surgeon-in-chief, Joseph E. Robert Jr. Center for Surgical Care, and director of the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation highlighted the exciting research and innovation happening at Children’s National – including demonstrating a technology, led by Raj Shekhar, PhD, that uses real-time imaging with augmented reality to project live ultrasound visualization of a patient within the surgeon’s field of view. This enhances surgical precision and ultimately supports positive patient outcomes.

This conversation was a part of Axios’ inaugural Future of Health Summit – an event bringing together the top voices in healthcare, policy and technology to explore the biggest challenges and innovations shaping the future of medicine.

The Lead in Peds Episode 4

Podcast: Future ready: AI’s role in revolutionizing pediatric care

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Doctors from Children's National Hospital in Uganda

Children’s National brings AI into the RHD early diagnosis equation

In December of 2024, a team that included experts from Children’s National Hospital traveled to Uganda to continue work on a pilot program applying artificial intelligence (AI) to the diagnosis of rheumatic heart disease (RHD). Ugandan health care providers have been trained and equipped to acquire echocardiograms for their patients but lack expertise in consistently being able to diagnose RHD by detecting leaky heart valves. The team created a tool that uses AI to predict RHD by identifying leaky heart valves on handheld ultrasound devices, then prompts a referral for a full echocardiogram.

The goal is to find ways to help people in Uganda diagnose RHD early, before a patient is in need of surgery, and initiate antibiotics so their heart can return to normal. The team of researchers, including fellow Kelsey Brown, MD, helped to implement additional steps toward this goal in December. According to Dr. Brown, the results were excellent. After four days of seeing patients, over 450 people were screened. The AI tool has an 86% accuracy rating. After returning from Uganda, the research team plans to work on the AI tool and further improve its accuracy rating. Eventually, the vision is that this tool can roll out on a larger scale for more places around the world to access it.

Craig Sable, MD, Marius Linguraru, DPhil, MA, MSc, and Pooneh Roshanitabrizi, PhD, from our Sheikh Zayed Institute, who developed the AI algorithms, worked in partnership with the Rheumatic Heart Disease Research Collaborative (RRCU) in Uganda. This trip was also made possible thanks to a grant funded through the Children’s National Global Health Initiative. Special thank you to our AI partner, US2.AI, who made the deployment of the AI models onto a tablet that provided real-time results, possible.

Illustration of a brain, stethoscope and computer chip

Global expert consensus defines first framework for building trustworthy AI in health care

Illustration of a brain, stethoscope and computer chip

The guidelines are the first globally acknowledged framework for developing and deploying health care AI applications and gauging whether the information they generate can be trusted or not.

More than 100 international experts in the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care published the first set of consensus guidelines that outline criteria for what it means for an AI tool to be considered trustworthy when implemented in health care settings.

The guidelines, published in the journal the BMJ, are the first globally acknowledged framework for developing and deploying health care AI applications and gauging whether the information they generate can be trusted or not.

What this means

Called the FUTURE-AI framework, the consensus guidelines are organized based on six guiding principles:

  • Fairness
  • Universality
  • Traceability
  • Usability
  • Robustness
  • Explainability

The cadre of experts reviewed and agreed upon a set of 30 best practices that fall within the six larger categories. These practices address technical, clinical, socio-ethical and legal aspects of trustworthy AI. The recommendations cover the entire lifecycle of health care AI: design, development and validation, regulation, deployment and monitoring.

The authors encourage researchers and developers to take these recommendations into account in the proof-of-concept phase for AI-driven applications to facilitate future translation to clinical practice.

Why it matters

“Patients, clinicians, health organizations and authorities need to know that information and analysis generated by AI can be trusted, or these tools will never make the leap from theoretical to real world application in a clinical setting,” says Marius George Linguraru, DPhil, MA, MSc, Connor Family Professor for Research and Innovation in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Surgical Innovation at Children’s National Hospital and co-author of the guidelines. “Bringing so many international and multi-disciplinary perspectives together to outline the characteristics of a trustworthy medical AI application is part of what makes this work unique. It is my hope that finding such broad consensus will shed light on the greater good  AI can bring to clinics and help us avoid problems before they ever impact patients.”

The FUTURE-AI consortium was founded by Karim Lekadir, PhD, ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona in 2021 and now comprises 117 interdisciplinary experts from 50 countries representing all continents, including AI scientists, clinical researchers, biomedical ethicists and social scientists. Over a 2-year period, the consortium established these guiding principles and best practices for trustworthy and deployable AI through an iterative process comprising an in-depth literature review, a modified Delphi survey and online consensus meetings. Dr. Linguraru contributed with a unique perspective on AI for pediatric care and rare diseases.

What’s next

The authors note that, “progressive development and adoption of medical AI tools will lead to new requirements, challenges and opportunities. For some of the recommendations, no clear standard on how these should be addressed yet exists.”

To tackle this uncertainty, they propose FUTURE-AI as a dynamic, living framework. This includes a dedicated website to allow the global community to participate in the FUTURE-AI network. Visitors can provide feedback based on their own experiences and perspectives. The input gathered will allow the consortium to refine the FUTURE-AI guidelines and learn from other voices.

Read the full manuscript outlining all 30 best practices: FUTURE-AI: international consensus guideline for trustworthy and deployable artificial intelligence in healthcare

Marius George Linguraru

Marius George Linguraru appointed as president of the MICCAI Society

Marius George Linguraru

“MICCAI has been a professional home for me throughout my career and I am deeply honored to have a chance to give back to the organization,” said Dr. Linguraru.

We’re pleased to announce that Marius George Linguraru, DPhil, MA, MSc, Connor Family professor and endowed chair in Research and Innovation at Children’s National, has been elected as president of the Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) Society board of directors. Dr. Linguraru has been involved in the society since he attended his first MICCAI conference in 2001. He was elected to the board of directors in 2021 and chairs the Career Development Working Group. Dr. Linguraru was instrumental in establishing the MICCAI Mentorship Program, the MICCAI Start-up Village and the AFRICAI Special Interest Group. He also served as the program chair of MICCAI 2024, which received and reviewed a record number of paper submissions. He will begin his three-year term as president on February 1, 2025. Watch Dr. Linguraru’s brief inaugural message to members here.

“MICCAI has been a professional home for me throughout my career and I am deeply honored to have a chance to give back to the organization,” said Dr. Linguraru. “I believe the society is poised not just to meet the challenges of the next few years, but to thrive as an essential leadership forum for the growth of medical image computing, computer assisted intervention and artificial intelligence in healthcare.”

Dr. Linguraru leads the AI research initiatives at Children’s National and serves as principal investigator in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation. His award-winning team builds artificial intelligence applications to expand health equity and access to pediatric healthcare when diseases are rare and resources are limited. Through partnerships between Children’s National and Virginia Tech and Microsoft, Dr. Linguraru also plays an integral role in exploring how generative AI can improve pediatric care.

Meanwhile, Caroline Essert, PhD, MSc, completes her term as president of the MICCAI Society on January 31, 2025.

“It has been an honor to contribute to the growth and vibrancy of this incredible community,” said Dr. Essert. “I extend my warmest welcome to Dr. Linguraru as the incoming president of the MICCAI Board. I am confident that under his leadership, the MICCAI Society will reach new heights and continue to serve as a beacon of excellence in our field.” Read her full farewell message here.

To learn more about the MICCAI Society, click here.

robotic surgery apparatus

Charging ahead: Researchers develop robotic renal tumor surgery

robotic surgery apparatus

Researchers at Children’s National Hospital are developing supervised autonomous robotic surgery to make expert kidney tumor removal accessible in rural areas, combining robotics, AI and surgeon oversight for safer, more precise outcomes.

Imagine a robot capable of planning and executing the intricate removal of a cancerous kidney tumor — a concept that might sound like science fiction. Yet this groundbreaking work is underway at the Sheikh Zayed Institute (SZI) for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children’s National Hospital.

Called Supervised Autonomous Robotic Renal Tumor Surgery (SARRTS), the project aims to prove that a supervised autonomous kidney resection is feasible. Its goal is to enable general surgeons in rural hospitals to oversee robots performing complex resections, democratizing access to specialized surgical care. Backed by a $1 million contract from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the initiative represents new opportunities in medical innovation.

“The hope is that, someday, patients will no longer have to travel to major oncology centers to get the best possible surgical outcome when faced with renal tumors,” said Kevin Cleary, PhD, associate director of engineering at SZI. “We hope to combine the precision of robotics with a surgeon’s clinical expertise to create consistently high outcomes.”

The patient benefit

Surgery is a cornerstone of cancer treatment, but access to skilled surgeons remains unevenly distributed nationwide. Autonomous robotic surgery could address this disparity by increasing access to expert-level care, enhancing the precision and consistency of procedures and unlocking new surgical possibilities beyond human surgeons’ capabilities.

Under the initial concept, the SARRTS system will use a combination of CT imaging and 3D mapping from a robot’s RGB-depth camera. While the robot independently plans and executes the incision and tumor resection, the supervising surgeon retains full control, with the ability to approve, modify or halt the procedure at any time — an interplay between human expertise and robotic precision to help ensure safety.

Testing will be conducted on realistic kidney models, called phantoms, which are designed to train and test surgical outcomes. The project aims to validate the feasibility of supervised autonomous tumor resection while advancing technologies that could pave the way for broader applications.

“Robotics and medicine have finally reached a point where we can consider projects requiring this level of complexity,” said Anthony Sandler, MD, senior vice president and surgeon-in-chief at Children’s National and executive director of SZI. By combining autonomous robotics, artificial intelligence and surgical expertise, we can profoundly impact the lives of patients facing life-altering cancer diagnoses.”

Children’s National leads the way

In addition to the kidney surgery initiative, the Children’s National team is pursuing other groundbreaking projects. These include a second ARPA-H contract focused on robotic gallbladder removal and a National Institutes of Health grant to explore robotic hip-pinning, a procedure used to repair fractured hips with pins, screws and plates.

Axel Krieger, PhD, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, is collaborating closely on the kidney resection and gallbladder projects. The interdisciplinary team believes this state-of-the-art care could be tested and developed within the next decade.

“This particular surgery is complex, and a robot may offer advantages to address difficulties created by patient anatomy and visibility within the surgical field,” said Dr. Sandler. “We can imagine a day – in the not too distant future – when a human and a robotic arm could team up to successfully advance this care.”

This project has been funded in whole with federal funds from ARPA-H under cooperative agreement AY1AX000023.

Children's National Hospital's winning team for the Brain Tumor Segmentation-Africa (BraTS-Africa) challenge

AI for good: Children’s National wins global competitions for measuring brain tumors

Children's National Hospital's winning team for the Brain Tumor Segmentation-Africa (BraTS-Africa) challenge

Meet the winners (left to right): Syed M. Anwar, Ph.D., M.S., principal investigator at Children’s National; Daniel Capellan Martin, M.Sc., Polytechnic University of Madrid; Abhijeet Parida, data scientist at Children’s National; and Austin Tapp, Ph.D., postdoctoral research fellow at Children’s National.

Using an award-winning artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm developed at Children’s National Hospital, researchers ranked first in the world in the Brain Tumor Segmentation-Africa (BraTS-Africa) challenge for their approach to identifying different parts of deadly gliomas. The details of their innovative method were recently published on arXiv, a curated research-sharing platform.

“Technology can bridge the gap in healthcare between high- and low-resource countries,” said Marius George Linguraru, D.Phil., M.A., M.Sc., the Connor Family Professor in Research and Innovation and principal investigator in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation (SZI). “By tailoring methods we created at our hospital to fit the needs of specific regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa, our research helps improve medical imaging and diagnosis in challenging environments.”

Dr. Linguraru was the program chair of the International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) 2024 in Marrakesh, Morocco, the leading global meeting on AI in medical imaging.

Children’s National leads the way

Gliomas are a type of brain tumor with a high death rate and are especially difficult to diagnose in low- and middle-income countries. Given the increased need in Africa, researchers worldwide came together in Morocco to compete over the best way to accurately detect and measure tumors using MRI data and AI.

By applying advanced machine-learning techniques, the researchers adapted tools initially designed for well-resourced settings to work in countries with far fewer.

The study focused on transfer learning, a process in which an AI model is trained in advance on a large number of brain tumor images and then adjusted to work with smaller sets of new data. In this case, the models were adapted to work with local sub-Saharan African data using a strategy to combine different models’ strengths.

When tested, the approach achieved impressive accuracy scores. The Children’s National team, which included a colleague from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, ranked first in the BraTS-Africa 2024 challenge for identifying different parts of gliomas.

“To make the method widely available, the winning algorithm is shared online for others to use and improve upon,” Dr. Linguraru said. “My favorite part of these competitions is how they highlight the way innovation and collaboration can reduce global healthcare inequalities.”

The big picture

Children’s National researchers consistently lead global events using AI and advanced imaging to tackle complex healthcare challenges. In 2023, the team won a global contest to measure pediatric brain tumors at the MICCAI 2023 Conference. This year’s success in the BraTS-Africa challenge builds on this knowledge base and expands its use to adult gliomas.

At the Radiological Society of North America 2024 annual meeting, which drew 50,000 attendees, Zhifan Jiang, Ph.D., a staff scientist in the Precision Medical Imaging Lab at SZI, also won the Cum Laude Award for his scientific poster on applying AI to radiological images to predict severe outcomes for children with brain tumors caused by neurofibromatosis type 1.

“These achievements show how our science is leading the world in using AI for good,” Dr. Linguraru said. “Every day, we’re building on our knowledge of advanced imaging, brain tumors and AI to improve the diagnosis, measurement and treatment of deadly tumors — on a global scale.”

Attendees of the Brain Tumor Segmentation-Africa (BraTS-Africa) challenge

illustration of bacterial outbreak

$2.2m grant to support AI-driven sepsis program for pediatric care

illustration of bacterial outbreak

Sepsis is a rapidly progressing, life-threatening condition characterized by organ dysfunction (OD) resulting from an immune response to infection.

Researchers at Children’s National Hospital are investigating pediatric sepsis, a leading cause of in-hospital death, particularly in underserved and minoritized populations.

A new Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) (R35) is granting over $2.2 million to Children’s National to establish a comprehensive sepsis program that will include a diagnostic artificial intelligence (AI) based, biomarker-enhanced platform for early recognition of pediatric sepsis and cutting-edge, extracellular vesicle-based therapeutics that can significantly decrease mortality and long-term disease sequelae.

MIRA provides support for research in an investigator’s laboratory that falls within the mission of The National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Why it matters

Sepsis, defined as a rapidly progressive, is a life-threatening organ dysfunction (OD) due to an immune dysregulation as a response to infection. In the U.S., it results in over 75,000 pediatric admissions on an annual basis with an associated mortality rate of 5 to 20%.

“Sepsis has been linked to 20% of deaths worldwide and despite some recent advances in diagnostic tools, the lack of accurate definitions and heterogeneity of this clinical syndrome have led to delays in recognition and treatment with deleterious effects on the health of millions of children, especially those from minority groups,” says Ioannis Koutroulis, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., research director of Emergency Medicine at Children’s National. “Additionally, current sepsis therapeutic regimens are mostly supportive, lack the necessary personalization and fail to address the underlying physiological processes leading to sepsis-induced life threating organ failure.”

How does it move the field forward

High mortality rates and no significant new treatments in recent years due to sepsis presents a critical opportunity to make a global impact. Advancements in early recognition and intervention could save millions of lives. By utilizing AI and biomarkers for the early detection of sepsis in children, medical professionals could have the potential to greatly improve outcomes by enabling timely treatment.

“There is an urgent need to focus more attention on this condition and develop effective solutions to combat its devastating effects,” Dr. Koutroulis adds.

How we’re leading the way

The high-volume pediatric emergency room will serve as a crucial site for recruiting patients. With access to state-of-the-art laboratories, the research will be conducted in facilities equipped with cutting-edge technology, ensuring accurate and efficient analysis. This combination of a high patient volume and advanced research infrastructure will enable the program to deliver reliable results and make significant strides in the fight against pediatric sepsis.

“This grant will allow for early recognition of pediatric sepsis and treatment with an innovative approach using extracellular vesicle-based therapies that can directly affect immune and metabolic processes,” Dr. Koutroulis said.

collage of news logos

Children’s National in the News: 2024

collage of news logosIn 2024, Children’s National Hospital continued to make remarkable strides across diverse areas of pediatric medicine, from groundbreaking technological innovations to critical health advocacy. The following compilation showcases ten significant stories that demonstrate the breadth and depth of the hospital’s impact, as featured in major national news outlets including NBC Nightly News, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, The Today Show, Healio, and POLITICO. Delve into our 2024 news highlights for more.

1. World’s smallest pacemaker gives new hope to babies with heart defects

Charles Berul, M.D., and a patient family talk about the pill-sized pacemaker that saved the life of Abby, an infant born with deadly heart defects. (NBC Nightly News)

2. ‘A $10 death trip’: Fentanyl is killing teens. Meet one fighting for his life

Sivabalaji Kaliamurthy, M.D., addiction psychiatrist and director of the Addictions Program, spoke to CNN about the impact of drug addiction on teen health and the lack of resources available to treat opioid use disorder. (CNN)

3. Health panel urges interventions for children and teens with high BMI

Susma Vaidya, M.D., M.P.H., associate medical director of the IDEAL Clinic, shared her concerns about childhood obesity treatment recommendations issued today by a leading panel of independent U.S. health experts. (The Washington Post)

4. An Rx for food? Doctor’s offices offer groceries to those in need

Shideh Majidi, M.D., M.S.C.S., and Emily Frymark, clinical dietitian, spoke about how the food pharmacy, created in partnership with the Capital Area Food Bank, benefits patients with diabetes and other chronic conditions. (The Washington Post)

5. First patient begins newly approved sickle cell gene therapy

Kendric Cromer, a 12-year-old boy being treated at Children’s National Hospital, became the first person in the world with sickle cell disease to begin a commercially approved gene therapy that may cure the condition. “This is a big effort,” says David Jacobsohn, M.D., ScM, M.B.A. (The New York Times)

6. ‘We created this problem’: A pediatric surgeon on how gun violence affects children

Mikael Petrosyan, M.D., associate chief of General and Thoracic Surgery, discusses the stress medical staff face when treating young victims of gun violence. (NPR)

7. 7th grade boy rings bell after final round of chemotherapy

Landon, an 11-year-old patient, rang the bell at Children’s National Hospital with family, friends, doctors and nurses cheering after finishing his final round of chemotherapy. (The Today Show)

8. Study: One in three adolescents experience ‘period poverty’

Monika Goyal, M.D., M.S.C.E., pediatric emergency medicine specialist and co-director of the Center for Translational Research, emphasized the need for awareness in addressing period poverty in teenagers and young adults. (Healio)

9. The AI assurance labs are coming

Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., M.B.A., P.M.P., vice president and chief innovation officer, participates in a panel discussion covering AI data collection, associated risks, reliance and other topics related to artificial intelligence. (POLITICO)

10. First day of a ‘new life’ for a boy with sickle cell

Children’s National patient Kendric Cromer, 12, became one of the first children ever to be treated with a newly approved gene therapy that will free him from the sickle cell disease that has stolen his childhood. (The New York Times)

2024 with a lightbulb instead of a zero

The best of 2024 from Innovation District

2024 with a lightbulb instead of a zero2024 marked another groundbreaking year for Children’s National Hospital, showcasing remarkable advances across the spectrum of pediatric medicine, research and healthcare innovation. From pioneering surgical procedures to breakthrough artificial intelligence applications, the institution continued to push the boundaries of what’s possible in children’s healthcare. Read on for our list of the most popular articles we published on Innovation District in 2024.

1. Prenatal COVID exposure associated with changes in newborn brain

A study led by researchers at Children’s National Hospital showed that babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic have differences in the size of certain structures in the brain, compared to infants born before the pandemic. The findings suggest that exposure to the coronavirus and being pregnant during the pandemic could play a role in shaping infant brain development.
(3 min. read)

2. Children’s National Hospital again ranked among the best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report

Children’s National Hospital was ranked as a top hospital in the nation by the U.S. News & World Report 2024-25 Best Children’s Hospitals annual rankings. This marks the eighth straight year Children’s National has made the Honor Roll list. The Honor Roll is a distinction awarded to only 10 children’s hospitals nationwide.
(2 min. read)

3. Children’s National performs first ever HIFU procedure on patient with cerebral palsy

In January 2023, a team of multidisciplinary doctors performed the first case in the world of using bilateral high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) pallidotomy on Jesus, a 22-year-old patient with dyskinetic cerebral palsy. The procedure is part of a clinical trial led by Chima Oluigbo, M.D., pediatric neurosurgeon at Children’s National Hospital.
(3 min. read)

4. Novel ultrasound device gets FDA breakthrough designation with Children’s National support

A novel ultrasound device developed by Bloom Standard received the Food and Drug Administration’s valued breakthrough device designation with the help of Children’s National Hospital. The device that enables autonomous, hands-free ultrasound scans to be performed anywhere, by any user.
(2 min. read)

5. First-of-its-kind pilot study on the impacts of Lyme disease in pregnancy and infant development

Understanding the effects of Lyme disease on the developing fetal brain is essential to ensure timely prenatal and postnatal treatments to protect the fetus and newborn. In response to this need, Children’s National Hospital is leading a pilot study to establish the groundwork needed for a larger study to determine the effect of in utero exposure to Lyme disease on pregnancy and early childhood neurodevelopmental outcomes.
(3 min. read)

6. Earliest hybrid HLHS heart surgery kids thrive 5 years later

Five years ago, Cayden was born 6 weeks early weighing less than four pounds and at risk of dying from her critical congenital heart disease. Today, she’s a happy five-year-old. Early diagnosis of her hypoplastic right ventricle, double inlet left ventricle and critical coarctation of the aorta allowed for the team at Children’s National Hospital to create a careful plan for safe delivery and to offer an innovative hybrid HLHS surgical approach at the hospital within 24 hours after she was born.
(1 min. read)

7. Wayne J. Franklin, M.D., F.A.C.C., named senior vice president of the Children’s National Heart Center

Children’s National Hospital appointed Wayne J. Franklin, M.D., F.A.C.C., as the new senior vice president (SVP) of the Children’s National Heart Center. In this role, Dr. Franklin oversees the full spectrum of heart care services including cardiac imaging and diagnostics, interventional cardiology, electrophysiology, cardiac anesthesia, cardiac surgery and cardiac intensive care.
(2 min. read)

8. Artificial – and accelerated – intelligence: endless applications to expand health equity

By pioneering artificial intelligence (AI) innovation programs at Children’s National Hospital, Marius George Linguraru, D.Phil., M.A., M.Sc., and the AI experts he leads are ensuring patients and families benefit from a coming wave of technological advances. The team is teaching AI to interpret complex data that could otherwise overwhelm clinicians.
(4 min. read)

9. Evidence review: Maternal mental conditions drive climbing death rate in U.S.

Painting a sobering picture, a research team led by Children’s National Hospital culled years of data demonstrating that maternal mental illness is an under-recognized contributor to the death of new mothers. They called for urgent action to address this public health crisis.
(3 min. read)

10. Nathan Kuppermann, M.D., M.P.H., named chief academic officer and chair of Pediatrics

Children’s National Hospital appointed Nathan Kuppermann, M.D., M.P.H., as its new executive vice president, chief academic officer and chair of Pediatrics. In this role, Dr. Kuppermann oversees research, education and innovation for the Children’s National Research Institute as well as academic and administrative leadership in the Department of Pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Services.
(2 min. read)

11. First global clinical trial achieves promising results for hypochondroplasia

Researchers from Children’s National Hospital presented findings from the first clinical trial of the medication vosoritide for children with hypochondroplasia – a rare genetic growth disorder. During the phase 2 trial, researchers found vosoritide increased the growth rate in children with hypochondroplasia, allowing them to grow on average an extra 1.8 cm per year.
(2 min. read)

12. Pioneering research center aims to revolutionize prenatal and neonatal health

Since its establishment in July 2023, the Center for Prenatal, Neonatal & Maternal Health Research at Children’s National Hospital has gained recognition through high-impact scientific publications, featuring noteworthy studies exploring the early phases of human development.
(3 min. read)

Alda Mizaku

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

Alda Mizaku

In June, Alda Mizaku, M.S., became the hospital’s first chief data and AI 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.

Read more stories like this one in the latest issue of Believe magazine.

Attendees at the Children's National-Microsoft session

Children’s National and Microsoft unite to reimagine pediatric care with AI

  • Attendees at the Children's National-Microsoft session
  • Attendees at the Children's National-Microsoft session
  • Attendees at the Children's National-Microsoft session
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Children’s National Hospital is teaming up with Microsoft to harness the power of generative AI and revolutionize healthcare solutions. Over the course of an intensive two-day prototype session guided by Microsoft experts, Children’s National developers explored innovative use cases in predictive analytics, decision support, workflow automation, patient engagement and personalized medicine. This collaboration aims to enhance the quality and efficiency of care, ultimately improving outcomes for young patients.

What they’re saying

“We are empowering innovation at Children’s National through the synergy of human creativity and GenAI, we are on a journey to redefine what’s possible in pediatric healthcare,” said Alda Mizaku, VP & chief data and artificial intelligence officer at Children’s National.

“We’re proud to be part of Children’s National’s journey toward building a data-driven, innovative infrastructure. Recent strides, such as launching Children’s AI journey and piloting physician-led AI initiatives, underscore their commitment to delivering exceptional care through cutting-edge Microsoft solutions,” said Tyler Bryson, corporate vice president at Microsoft.

What was developed

Children’s National’s developers created the following GenAI Use Cases for the Rapid Prototype:

  • Use Case 1: Inpatient Stay Insights
    Create personalized summaries of hospital stays using AI. It analyzes clinical records and data to generate narratives for different personas, such as providers, coders, parents, patients and care managers.
  • Use Case 2: Next Best Action
    Proactive care by generating personalized recommendations for a patient’s continued care, streamlining care coordination, improving outcomes and enhancing communication between healthcare providers, care managers and patients.
  • Use Case 3: Beacon – Internal Policies and Procedures
    Beacon, a GenAI-powered assistant that chats with our internal knowledge base. It can answer questions and give information from our policies, procedures, manuals and other content.
  • Use Case 4: Personalized Medication Consultation
    Create a personalized medication consultation, aimed at enhancing the medication alert system through tailored alerts and guidance to providers, while taking into account patient’s clinical data and institutional patterns.

Reflecting on the development of these use cases, Children’s National hospitalist and chief informatics officer Jessica Herstek, M.D., said “We aim to develop scalable and sustainable solutions to everyday challenges in pediatric health care. For this prototype session, we brought together teams from across our organization with clinical, operational, and technical skills to test the possibilities and fallibilities of AI-enabled tools and explore how we can push ourselves and our technology partners to support the needs of our patients and families and the workflows of our doctors and nurses.”

Why is this exciting? What’s next?

Mizaku says this is a pivotal moment in Children’s journey towards revolutionizing pediatric healthcare. As we move forward, we commit to developing generative AI capabilities that are not only scalable and robust but also specifically tailored to meet the unique needs of our young patients. Our focus will be on practical applications that enhance care delivery while also improving efficiencies for our staff and internal teams.

A special thanks to our Microsoft partners: Tyler Bryson, Tyler Flatt, Jordan Lipp, Natalie Pearce, Todd Painter, Paul Fisher and Mahjabin Ahmed.

Children’s National Hospital participants: Catherine Pearcy, Nolen Morton, Brittany Duah, Ann Hoffman, Walter Buckner, Dr. Jessica Herstek, Ranjodh Badh, Geetanjali Vashist, Shivaram Muruga, Dr. Rachel Selekman, Dr. Paul Michel, Dr. Kenneth McKinley, Simmy King, Dr. Mihailo Kaplarevic, Aymen Mehai, Dr. Syed Anwar, Parida Abhijeet, Dr. Xinyang Liu, Andrew Maddox, Amy Quinn, Mike McLaughlin, Samm Sherman, Alda Mizaku, Shannon Cross, Shahzaib Ismail, Aric Campling, Frederick Zilmer, and Johnie Henry.

Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., M.B.A., during her recent appearance at POLITICO.

In the news: The future of patient care and access

Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., M.B.A., during her recent appearance at POLITICO.

“It is a market failure that we are dealing with – a lack of incentives leading to a stagnation in innovation with respect to small markets, such as pediatrics. Children’s National Hospital and our partners in other children’s hospitals in the country play a critical role in making noise and sending a message that children should not be an afterthought.” 

Hear more from Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., M.B.A., during her recent appearance at POLITICO. As vice president and chief innovation officer at Children’s National and Alliance for Pediatric Device Innovation principal investigator, Dr. Eskandanian shared her approach to engaging with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to advance artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies for pediatric healthcare. To date, she noted, the FDA has authorized 950 healthcare-related technologies enabled with AI and machine learning.

A speaker at the 2nd annual Children’s National Hospital-Virginia Tech Symposium on AI for Pediatric Health

Transforming pediatric care: How AI is driving the next medical revolution

  • Attendees at the Children's National-Microsoft session
  • Attendees at the Children's National-Microsoft session
  • Attendees at the Children's National-Microsoft session
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The future of healthcare is unfolding before scientists and clinicians: Doctors are assisted by virtual scribes trained by artificial intelligence. Algorithms are reading MRIs. Smartphones are helping to detect strep throat. Machines diagnose children without access to care.

These and dozens of other artificial intelligence (AI) applications are being tested to enhance pediatric healthcare, and many were on display at the 2nd annual Children’s National Hospital-Virginia Tech Symposium on AI for Pediatric Health at the Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus.

Some highlights from the daylong conversation about the future of pediatric medicine, augmented by AI and generative AI models capable of producing new and critical content:

  • Marius George Linguraru, D.Phil., M.A., M.Sc., the Connor Family Professor in Research and Innovation and principal investigator in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation: “Children are just not mini-adults. In pediatric care, we train pediatric specialists because kids die from different diseases than those that kill adults. Children also suffer from very impactful and rare conditions. If we train pediatric specialists well, we have to train AI algorithms in the same fashion.”
  • Rowland Illing, M.D., Ph.D., chief medical officer and director of global healthcare and nonprofits at Amazon Web Services: “In a short period of time, the complexity of the models available is astounding. Generative AI, just like AI, can impact outcomes at every step of the patient pathway, including the clinical workflow, care management and patient engagement. By creating a specific use case with generative AI, every step can be optimized to be smarter, which ultimately leads to improved patient care and outcomes.”
  • Children’s National Chief Academic Officer Nathan Kuppermann, M.D., M.P.H.: “AI in pediatric health is not just about identifying rare diseases. Its potential includes all aspects of clinical care, clinical operations, education and research. It has the potential to help educators enhance the novelty and impact of their methods and advance research with powerful tools to gather and analyze data.”
  • Alda Mizaku, vice president and chief data and artificial intelligence officer at Children’s National: “What excites me most about our future is the endless possibilities. We can use AI and data to uncover many things: rare diseases, operational efficiencies, time-saving and cost-saving solutions. This has to be done in a responsible way, and we must look at what some of the guardrails need to be.”

Throughout the day, expert panels offered insights into regulatory pathways to deploy AI in pediatric drugs and devices. The Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Science and Engineering Laboratories also provided guidance on collaborative tools for improving the representation of children and perinatal patients in AI-powered medical devices.

Moving the field forward

Early adopters of AI at Children’s National shared applications already under investigation, including efforts to segment and measure brain tumors on imaging, weigh the risk of strep throat with a smartphone camera and detect rheumatic heart disease with portable technology and an algorithm.

Dr. Linguraru, an expert in healthcare AI, said that artificial intelligence is no longer a hypothetical technology but is already remaking the healthcare system. “AI is here. What matters now is how we use it and how we train doctors to use it well,” he said.

The big picture

Through growing partnerships, Children’s National experts are teaming up with researchers at Virginia Tech on a series of AI-driven projects aimed at advancing pediatric health, including programs to rethink privacy in federated learning, forecast emergency department surges, extract clinical variables from documents to predict sepsis risks, identify rare genetic syndromes in children, and predict single-cell responses to genetic perturbations in pediatric developmental disorders.

Naren Ramakrishnan, Ph.D., director of the Sanghani Center at Virginia Tech and the Thomas L. Phillips Professor in the College of Engineering, said the partnership between the two academic centers is changing healthcare already and will continue to as the organizations offer future seed grants to support innovation in cardiology, neuroscience and oncology. “The roots have borne fruit,” he said.

Doctor using digital tablet for advanced Mri x-ray scan

AI’s transformative potential in radiology

Doctor using digital tablet for advanced Mri x-ray scan

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to enhance radiological imaging, improve diagnostic capabilities and reduce burnout in the field.

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to enhance radiological imaging, improve diagnostic capabilities and reduce burnout in the field, provided that physicians and scientists work together to ensure its careful integration into the practice of medicine, according to a special report in Radiology: Artificial Intelligence, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Assembled by experts in radiology, medical imaging and machine learning, the special report lays out the clinical, cultural, computation and regulatory considerations that are being introduced, particularly as generative AI models become part of the field.

“AI tools can play a key role in radiology, but radiologists must be able to trust in the systems’ design and receive adequate training. As the physicians most familiar with these tools, radiologists should establish clear guidelines regarding clinical accountability,” said Marius George Linguraru, D.Phil., M.A., M.Sc., the Connor Family Professor in Research and Innovation and principal investigator in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation.

Moving the field forward

Dr. Linguraru and his peers assembled the report based on a series of seminars hosted by RSNA and the Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) Society. They collected input from multidisciplinary experts to outline the current clinical uses of AI and its future potential.

The experts agreed that collaboration between radiologists and AI scientists will be essential to successfully integrate AI into the discipline of radiology. This partnership should focus on establishing a unified agenda, shared language and clear expectations of the tools developed. By working together, they can ensure that AI tools are designed and implemented to meet the practical needs of radiology, particularly with the incorporation of language and vision models.

What’s next

Among the challenges ahead, clinical institutions must align their staffing, data management and computational resources to deploy and monitor AI systems effectively. This alignment includes ensuring that personnel are adequately trained to use AI tools, that data is managed and processed efficiently and that sufficient computational power is available to support AI operations. Cloud computing may be vital to hospitals that don’t have hardware and technical maintenance resources.

“The successful integration of AI in radiology depends on trust in AI design, collaborative efforts between radiologists and AI scientists, and the alignment of clinical resources to support AI deployment,” Dr. Linguraru said. “With these factors in place, AI can play a transformative role in improving radiological practices and outcomes.”

Read the special report “Clinical, Cultural, Computational, and Regulatory Considerations to Deploy AI in Radiology: Perspectives of RSNA and MICCAI Experts” in Radiology: Artificial Intelligence.

illustration of a gallbladder

Innovating improved outcomes with robotic gallbladder removal

Patients want to hear they are “in good hands” when choosing a surgeon. A Children’s National Hospital team is investigating whether those hands could be replaced with an autonomous robotic arm during pediatric cholecystectomy procedures.

“The role of autonomous surgery is at a pivot point,” said Anthony Sandler, M.D., senior vice president and surgeon-in-chief at Children’s National and director of the Sheikh Zayed Institute of Pediatric Surgical Innovation (SZI). “Just as it is with autonomously driving cars, we are testing whether a gallbladder removal can be controlled and managed by a robotic arm, rather than a laparoscopic surgeon. In preclinical models, we are evaluating whether we can take the next step forward. We believe we can, and this research will be proof of concept for autonomous surgery.”

The big picture

The rate of cholecystectomy has been on the rise among pediatric patients for the last two decades. It becomes necessary when the gallbladder becomes full of painful gallstones, often caused by obesity and inherited blood disorders like sickle cell disease. Across the country, 99% of gallbladder removals happen without complications.

Yet Children’s National hopes to develop technologies to boost that number even higher. Working with partners, the hospital has embarked on two contracts with the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H): a three-year and a two-year contract, worth $3.5 million each (75N91023C00048 & 75N91023C00053, respectively). The Children’s National team is collaborating on solutions with Optosurgical Chief Executive Officer Yoseph Kim, M.S.E., and Axel Krieger, Ph.D., associate professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

They are tapping into two areas of expertise: robotic surgery and the development of a novel fluorescent dye that – when paired with advanced imaging – can aid surgeons in seeing bleeds during gallbladder removals.

The project also combines the talents of Dr. Sandler and Children’s National optical engineer Richard Cha, Ph.D., principal investigator at SZI, to explore how to integrate these technologies in the operating room.

“Autonomous gallbladder removal involves the identification of the target tissue – the bile duct, the cystic artery and the gallbladder. Our team’s new 3D imaging techniques will help visualize and work through the surgical steps, by locating each target,” Dr. Cha said. “When this technology and related programming come together, it could mark a significant step forward in pediatric surgery.”

The fine print

Given the gallbladder’s small size and accessible location just beneath the liver, cholecystectomy is most often done laparoscopically, using small cameras and incisions. There are three main steps: ligating – or closing off – the cystic artery, ligating the cystic duct while protecting the common bile duct, and removing the gallbladder. Drs. Sandler and Cha believe outcomes will improve if the expertise and delicacy of a robot are incorporated into the procedure.

“If you’re that one patient out of 100 who has significant bleeding post-operatively or, even worse, you are among the 0.5% of patients who have an injury to the bile duct, the impact on your wellbeing is significant after that surgery,” Dr. Sandler said. “Having that extra security of technology and guidance will be an incredible value-add for any patient undergoing this procedure.”

These projects have been funded in whole with federal funds from ARPA-H, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. 75N91023C00053 and Contract No. 75N91023C00048.

Dr. Craig Sable in Uganda

Around the world

Our Global Health Initiative launched in 2016 with the goal of eliminating pediatric health disparities around the world. We aim to address the most pressing pediatric health issues through better care for medically underserved populations. This leadership helps us achieve our mission of caring for all children. A broad range of education and research projects improves health outcomes. They also offer enriching opportunities for experienced faculty and emerging leaders to advance clinical excellence.

Healing hearts in Uganda

Dr. Craig Sable in Uganda

Dr. Craig Sable and team train partners in Uganda.

Craig Sable, M.D., interim chief of Cardiology, improves care for young people with rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in Uganda. Donors, including the Karp Family Foundation, Huron Philanthropies, Zachary Blumenfeld Fund and the Wood family, make this possible. RHD affects 50 million people, mostly children, worldwide. It claims 400,000 lives each year.

Dr. Sable and Ugandan partners completed important research showing that early RHD detection, coupled with monthly penicillin treatment, can protect the heart. They are working on practical solutions, such as a new portable device with artificial intelligence (AI) that can easily screen for RHD.

In 2023, Dr. Sable led two missions in Uganda where he and his team did surgeries and special tests for 18 children with RHD. They also taught local doctors new skills to help more kids on their own.

Plastic surgery and reconstructive care in Kenya and Nepal

Each year our Craniofacial & Pediatric Plastic Surgery team, under the leadership of Johnston Family Professor of Pediatric Plastic Surgery and Chief of Pediatric Plastic Surgery Gary Rogers, M.D., J.D., LL.M., M.B.A., M.P.H., provides opportunities for fellows to participate in surgical missions.

In 2024, Perry Bradford, M.D., traveled to the Moi Teaching Hospital in Eldoret, Kenya where she provided patients with burn, pressure wound and cleft reconstruction. She built community connections with the local plastic surgeons and educated registrars and medical students. “This gave me firsthand experience working in a community with limited resources and forced me to be more creative,” Dr. Bradford says. “The experience inspired me to examine what it means to have consistent access to advanced tools and equipment.”

In 2022, a group traveled to Nepal to provide care. Some patients arrived after days of travel by yak or buffalo. One child with a burn injury recovered use of her hand. The team educated local providers to deliver life-changing treatments unavailable in Nepal.

Dr. Tesfaye Zelleke in Ethiopia

Dr. Tesfaye Zelleke, left, and team in Ethopia.

Elevating epilepsy care in Ethiopia

Neurologist Tesfaye Zelleke, M.D., and partners in Ethiopia are seeking to improve the lives of children with epilepsy. The BAND Foundation provides support. Ethiopia has a population of about 120 million yet only a handful of pediatric neurologists.

Dr. Zelleke’s team trained nonspecialist providers to diagnose and treat children in the primary care setting. They also launched a mobile epilepsy clinic to provide community care and build the capacity of local clinicians. In collaboration with advocacy groups, the team educates the public about epilepsy with a goal of reducing stigma.

New hope in Norway

In 2023, our Division of Colorectal & Pelvic Reconstruction shared its expertise with clinicians at Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet, in Norway. This effort was a key first step in Oslo becoming the first dedicated colorectal center in Scandinavia.

Marc Levitt, M.D., and team members performed complex surgeries otherwise unavailable for waiting patients. They led an academic conference. They held clinics to educate nurses, reviewed patient records and made care recommendations. Specialized care enabled a young patient with significant bowel difficulties to recover function and lead a normal life.

The team will travel to South Africa, the Czech Republic and Spain in 2024. Donors, including The Dune Road Foundation and Deanna and Howard Bayless, make this work possible.

Improving outcomes for babies in the Congo

AI can be a valuable tool for diagnosing genetic conditions. It detects unique facial patterns that clinicians without genetics training can miss. However, existing facial analysis software struggles in nonwhite populations.

A team led by Marius George Linguraru, D.Phil., M.A., M.Sc., the Connor Family Professor of Research and Innovation and principal investigator in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation, is working to improve the newborn diagnosis rate worldwide. They are testing smartphone software in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Diverse newborn data improves AI’s ability to detect a variety of genetic conditions in more children. Early detection, diagnosis and informed care lead to better health outcomes.

Nephrology care for kids in Jamaica

Dr. Moxey-Mims and team in Jamaica

Jennifer Carver and Dr. Marva Moxey-Mims, center, with staff at Bustamante Children’s Hospital.

Marva Moxey-Mims, M.D., chief of Nephrology, is bringing care to children with kidney disease in Jamaica, with a goal of improving health equity. An International Pediatric Nephrology Association grant helped make it possible.

On a recent trip, Dr. Moxey-Mims and a small team — including Jennifer Carver, RN, CNN, lead peritoneal dialysis nurse at Children’s National, and three pediatric nephrologists from Jamaica — trained nearly 30 nurses from Jamaican hospitals. Nurses received hands-on dialysis education to improve their clinical skills. The team also worked to educate the community in disease awareness and prevention.

Read more stories like this one in the latest issue of Believe magazine.

Alda Mizaku

Alda Mizaku named chief data and artificial intelligence officer

Alda Mizaku

“It’s an honor to join the team at Children’s National,” said Mizaku. “I look forward to collaborating with leaders across the organization to enable data and AI-driven solutions.”

Children’s National Hospital is pleased to welcome Alda Mizaku in a newly established role of vice president and chief data and artificial intelligence officer (CDAIO). In this role, Mizaku will lead the execution of enterprise data, analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) strategy at Children’s National.

Mizaku has a track record of leading initiatives with measurable organizational value, from reducing unnecessary length of stay to enhancing operational efficiency and patient outcomes. Prior to joining Children’s National, Mizaku spent 11 years working for Mercy Health System in St. Louis, where she served in various roles, including executive director of Data Engineering and Analytics, and vice president of Analytics Product Management.

“It’s an honor to join the team at Children’s National,” said Mizaku. “I look forward to collaborating with leaders across the organization to enable data and AI-driven solutions.”

Mizaku will oversee a center of excellence focused on enterprise data management and governance, promoting data-driven decision-making and maximizing investment in modern data and AI technology.

“AI has the power to improve pediatric disease detection and diagnosis, accelerate research breakthroughs and advance health equity,” said Matt MacVey, executive vice president and chief information officer at Children’s National. “Our investment in a chief data and AI role will accelerate this important transformation.”

Having built her career at the intersections of technology, healthcare and life sciences,

Mizaku is passionate about instilling curiosity in the next generation. She is a lead mentor of For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), a robotics community that inspires young people to pursue careers in STEM and teaches the technical skills they need to thrive.

person using a ChatBot

Study finds difficulty distinguishing between human and AI-written abstracts

person using a ChatBotA new study published in JAMA Pediatrics suggests healthcare professionals struggle to identify research abstracts written by artificial intelligence (AI) compared to those written by humans.

The study, led by Dennis Ren, M.D., emergency medicine provider at Children’s National Hospital, highlights the lack of established standards for the use of AI in scientific writing and publishing.

The big picture

The researchers presented 102 healthcare professionals with four research abstracts: two written by human researchers from the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in 2020, and two generated by ChatGPT 3.5 (OpenAI). The participants were asked to identify the abstracts’ origin and state how they made their determination.

The participants were able to identify the abstracts’ origins correctly 43% of the time, but accuracy ranged from 20% to 57%. This suggests that healthcare professionals cannot reliably distinguish between research abstracts written by humans and those written by AI. Interestingly, 72.5% of participants believed using AI for research abstracts was ethical.

Why it matters

AI tools are becoming more widely used in scientific research, including writing and editing scientific content. However, there are no set standards for what constitutes the appropriate use of AI in scientific writing and publishing. This study asks the critical question: can healthcare professionals even tell the difference between AI and human generated content?

In conclusion, the authors state that they have no reservations about using AI to generate abstracts or even full articles as long as the final product can be reviewed and edited.

“AI may help with knowledge dissemination, but it can also be a source of misinformation and disinformation,” says Dr. Ren. “We need to teach skills of critical thinking and critical appraisal to everyone.”

What’s next

The team is currently exploring other potential applications of AI, such as whether it may be useful in emergency department triage.

Read the full study, Identification of Human-Generated vs AI-Generated Research Abstracts by Health Care Professionals, in JAMA Pediatrics.

Marius George Linguraru giving a lecture on AI

Artificial – and accelerated – intelligence: endless applications to expand health equity

In the complex world of pediatric diseases, researchers need access to data to develop clinical trials and the participation of vulnerable patients to develop new devices and therapies. Both are in short supply, given that most children are born healthy, and most severe pediatric diseases are rare.

That creates a dilemma: how do researchers build a foundation to advance new treatments? Enter artificial intelligence (AI).

“AI is the equalizer: accelerated intelligence for sick kids. No other advance on the horizon holds more promise for improving equity and access to pediatric healthcare when diseases are rare and resources are limited,” says Marius George Linguraru, D.Phil., M.A., M.Sc., the Connor Family Professor in Research and Innovation and principal investigator in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation (SZI). “AI will shrink the distance between patient and provider, allowing our physicians and scientists to provide targeted healthcare for children more efficiently. The possibilities are endless.”

Why we’re excited

By pioneering AI innovation programs at Children’s National Hospital, Dr. Linguraru and the AI experts he leads are ensuring patients and families benefit from a coming wave of technological advances. The team is teaching AI to interpret complex data that could otherwise overwhelm clinicians. Their work will create systems to identify at-risk patients, forecast disease and treatment patterns, and support complex clinical decisions to optimize patient care and hospital resources. Already, the AI team at SZI has developed data-driven tools touching nearly every corner of the hospital:

  • AI for rheumatic heart disease (RHD): In partnership with Children’s National cardiology leaders, including Craig Sable, M.D., the Uganda Heart Institute and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, the AI team has developed an algorithm that can use low-cost, portable ultrasound imaging to detect RHD in children and young adults, a disease that takes nearly 400,000 lives annually in limited-resource countries. Early testing shows the AI platform has the same accuracy as a cardiologist in detecting RHD, paving the way for earlier treatment with life-saving antibiotics. This year, Children’s National physicians will be in Uganda, screening 200,000 children with local cardiology experts and AI technology.
  • Newborn screening for genetic conditions with mGene: Working with Rare Disease Institute clinicians and Chief of Genetics and Metabolism Debra Regier, M.D., the AI team has built technology to detect rare genetic disorders, using an algorithm and a smartphone camera to identify subtle changes in facial features. Tested on patients from over 30 countries and published in The Lancet Digital Health, the application helps screen children for advanced care when a geneticist may not be within reach. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, Children’s National and its research partners are piloting a newborn screening program in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
  • Pediatric brain tumors: To improve and personalize the treatment decisions for children with brain tumors, Dr. Linguraru’s team is working with Brain Tumor Institute Director Roger Packer, M.D., the Gilbert Family Distinguished Professor of Neurofibromatosis, on algorithms that can characterize and measure brain tumors with unprecedented precision. The team recently won the International Pediatric Brain Tumor Segmentation Challenge, distinguishing the Children’s National algorithm as among the best in the world.
  • Ultra-low field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): With a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the AI team is working alongside Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, King’s College London and the UNITY Consortium to expand global brain imaging capacity. The consortium is helping clinicians in limited-resource countries improve the treatment of neonatal neurological conditions, using AI to boost the quality of ultra-low field MRI and expand access to this portable and more affordable imaging option.
  • Federated learning: Children’s National has collaborated with NVIDIA and other industry leaders to accelerate AI advances through federated learning. Under this approach, institutions share AI models rather than data, allowing them to collaborate without exposing patient information or being constrained by essential data-sharing restrictions. The SZI team was the only pediatric partner invited to join the largest federated learning project of its kind, studying the lungs of COVID-19 patients. Details were published in Nature Medicine.

Children’s National leads the way

Looking ahead, the Children’s National AI team is pursuing a wide range of advances in clinical care. To support patients treated at multiple clinics, they are developing systems to harmonize images from different scanners and protocols, such as MRI machines made by different manufacturers. Similar work is underway to analyze pathology samples from different institutions consistently.

Automation is also making care more efficient. For example, using data from 1 million chest X-rays, the team is collaborating with NVIDIA to develop a conversational digital assistant that will allow physicians to think through 14 possible diagnoses.

Dr. Linguraru says he and his colleagues are galvanized by the jarring statistic that one in three children with a rare disease dies before age 5. While well-implemented AI initiatives can change outcomes, he says the work must be done thoughtfully.

“In the future, patients will be evaluated by human clinicians and machines with extraordinary powers to diagnose illness and determine treatments,” Dr. Linguraru said. “Our team at Children’s National is leading conversations about the future of pediatric healthcare with a focus on safety, resource allocation and basic equity.”

Learn more about our AI initiatives

Innovation leaders at Children’s National Hospital are building a community of AI caregivers through educational and community-building events. At the inaugural Symposium on Artificial Intelligence in 2023 at the Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus, experts from Virginia Tech, JLABS, Food and Drug Administration, Pfizer, Oracle Health, NVIDIA, AWS Health and elsewhere laid out a vision for using data to advance pediatric medicine. The symposium will return on Sept. 6.

Dr. Linguraru is the program chair of MICCAI 2024, the top international meeting on medical image computing and computer-assisted intervention and the preeminent forum for disseminating AI developments in healthcare. The conference is an educational platform for scientists and clinicians dedicated to AI in medical imaging, with a focus on global health equity. It will take place for the first time in Africa on Oct. 6-10.