AI4Society Dialogues, S2E3 - Data, Virtual Care and Precision Health

Advances in digital innovation, including artificial intelligence, are rapidly changing the face of both healthcare research and the delivery of care. In his work as a clinician, professor and researcher, Dr. Daniel Baumgart is working to advance precision medicine on all of these fronts. We talk about his early interest in computers, why he chose to pursue an MBA in addition to his medical background, his research on Crohn’s disease and his recent work on virtual care, why Alberta can play a leading role in digital health innovation, and being a clinician during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Healthcare is delivered in three classical settings – an outpatient clinic, the emergency room and the hospital. There are huge gaps between those encounters….a lot of information from patients (data, feedback) is lost because they only meet us in these classic encounters. In the future…we will be going to (the patient)…they will participate more in their healthcare experience. Which will be part of the driver of digital health and will produce the data that artificial intelligence needs to shine.” - Daniel Baumgart

Dr. Daniel Baumgart is the Director of the Division of Gastroenterology in the Department of Medicine, at the University of Alberta. Dr. Baumgart holds an MD, PhD and an MBA, and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He is a founding member of the University of Alberta Precision Health signature area and leads research with the Alberta Precision Health Innovation, Research and Technology Ecosystem. His list of accolades, funding and partnerships are numerous. He has been the principal investigator on over 200 multinational clinical trials. Recent research areas include projects on AI-enabled decision support systems, digital health and virtual care.

Season two of AI4Society Dialogues is a co-production between two signature research areas at the University of Alberta, AI4Society and Precision Health.

Host: Katrina Ingram, Founder and CEO, Ethically Aligned AI
Technical Producer: Corey Stroeder
Special thanks to Kaly Vittala for research and production support.
Theme music: “Seeing the Future” by Dexter Britain

Dr. Eleni Stroulia, Professor, Computer Science and Director, AI4Society
Dr. Lawrence Richer, Vice Dean, Research, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry
Copyright 2021 University of Alberta. All rights reserved.