Please join us for the next KAUST Smart-Health Initiative (KSHI) seminar:

Augmenting human touch in healthcare using AI

By Professor Ehsan Hoque, University of Rochester, New York, US

Abstract

Despite investing over $38 billion in electronic health records since 2011 in the US, many healthcare professionals continue to express dissatisfaction with the technology. Our current approach of simply ‘adding technology’ into healthcare has not been successful. In this talk, I will address the need for technology to align with our values, social norms, and existing infrastructure in order to integrate seamlessly with healthcare processes and improve access and equity. I will argue that the issue with health AI is not technical but rather an adaptive one. Closing the loop on smart health will involve people themselves to change rather than trying to ‘anesthetize’ them so we can go off and solve it using our AI.

I will provide examples from our work on how collaboration between technology experts and healthcare professionals can lead to effective AI solutions, such as using AI to quantify movement disorders remotely via a webcam and improve empathy and listening skills for doctors assisting terminally ill patients or using AI to help individuals with autism improve their social skills. By adopting the principle of "AI in the loop: Humans in Charge," we can ensure that technology is developed to serve and empower patients and healthcare professionals.

About the speaker

Ehsan Hoque is an associate professor of computer science at the University of Rochester, where he co-leads the Rochester Human-Computer Interaction (ROC HCI) Group. Ehsan earned his Ph.D. from MIT in 2013, where the MIT Museum highlighted his dissertation—the development of an intelligent agent to improve human ability — as one of MIT’s most unconventional inventions. Building on the work/patent, Microsoft released “Speaker Coach” available in PowerPoint. Ehsan is best known for introducing and extensively validating the idea of using AI to train and enhance elements of basic human ability.

Ehsan and his students’ work has been recognized by NSF CAREER Award, MIT TR35, Young Investigator Award by the US Army Research Office (ARO). In 2017, Science News named him one of the 10 scientists to watch, and in 2020, the National Academy of Medicine recognized him as one of the emerging leaders in health and medicine. Ehsan is a distinguished member of ACM and a winner of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)—the highest honor bestowed by the US Government to young scientists and engineers.