Kevin B. Johnson, MD, MS

David L. Cohen University Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Computer Science, Pediatrics, and Science Communication; Vice President of Applied Clinical Informatics in the University of Pennsylvania Health System

The current US healthcare system faces criticism for escalating costs, stagnant quality, and a largely unrealized benefit from billions of dollars in investment. Recent advances in AI can play a critical role in various medical tasks, such as identifying patients at risk of disease and generating medical visit summaries. These advances are already transforming other industries, but are slow to be adopted in medicine, in part because of the sensitive nature of health care encounters and of their data exhaust. The goal of the Observer project is to create an open resource that provides data and contextual information that will inform research bridging medicine, engineering, and other disciplines focusing on health and healthcare. The presentation will discuss the work underway to build this resource, as well as some potential projects based on what has been seen to date.