Quality & Patient Safety initiative to drive innovation in quality, patient safety, health care efficiency and workforce development
With $10 million annually in state funding, vision is to create an AI-enabled institute
June 28, 2023 — Every day, patients generate thousands of data points that can reveal key insights regarding their health. With the explosion of artificial intelligence capabilities, clinicians are now better able to use these data points to inform how they deliver high-quality, evidence-based care, tailored to each individual. From making more accurate diagnoses and creating more personalized treatment plans to predicting patient outcomes, the technology, tools and training possibilities of this new era of medicine have the power to transform care.
At the University of Florida College of Medicine, a primary focus is applying these tools to improve health care quality, eliminate preventable harm, advance knowledge of health care delivery to reduce waste, and become a national resource for workforce development. Now, the college has received $10 million annually in state appropriations to launch an artificial intelligence-enabled Quality & Patient Safety initiative, or QPSi, to bring this vision to life. The goal is to create an institute that will drive innovations that improve quality, patient safety, health care efficiency and workforce development by harnessing the University of Florida’s computational strength in AI and resources such as HiPerGator, one of the fastest supercomputers in American higher education.
“With our college’s strategic plan, Engage, Innovate, Excel 2026, we have made incredible advances and investments over the last two years in initiatives that will change the health care landscape for patients and providers,” said Colleen Koch, M.D., M.S., M.B.A., dean of the College of Medicine. “The QPSi represents the next phase of our commitment to pioneering a new AI and quality and safety frontier, with the ultimate goal of improving care for patients in Florida and across the nation.”
The QPSi will build upon the college’s previous successes in research, education and workforce development. In the research realm, initiatives that have rolled out since 2021 include Rapid AI Prototyping and Development for Patient Safety, or RAPiDS, a grants program that functions as the mechanism for developing, testing and advancing innovative AI quality improvement efforts, promoting faculty career development and stimulating external funding. Another new development is AI Labs for Patient Safety, or ALPS, an integrated infrastructure and safe space for sensitive analytics that enables clinicians and others across the health system to access and compute data, using AI processes to facilitate quality improvement in patient safety.
With the QPSi, a new research center will aim to continue to develop an innovative AI infrastructure to advance quality and patient safety research, while a biomedical AI passport program will train providers in literacy and mastery of AI applications in health care.
“One of the most exciting opportunities with AI is that, given new tools and methodologies, we can approach problems with a reconceptualization of what is possible,” said Patrick Tighe, M.D., M.S., the associate dean for AI application and innovation at the College of Medicine, who will also serve as director of the Research Center for Artificial Intelligence and Quality and Patient Safety. “Sometimes AI just helps us complete a preexisting workflow more efficiently. But the more exciting possibilities are where AI helps us better understand what we’re really hoping to achieve and permits a radically better path to get there. We’ve already developed new infrastructure such as ALPS and RAPiDS to position ourselves for success in the QPSi. We also have amazing research teams in biomedical informatics, AI tool development and implementation science, health care simulation and even the engineering of resilient health care systems all supporting the continuum of research to health care operations. Our AI training programs for students, physicians and research faculty increase the collegewide bandwidth for bringing AI advances to the bedside.”
In the education space, QPSi efforts will leverage lessons learned from launching a custom, leading-edge educational curriculum around AI to provide even more training opportunities for the UF community — and beyond — through a Quality and Patient Safety Academy, a collaboration with the UF College of Education. The academy will feature core learning pathways on implementation science, quality and patient safety, biomedical informatics, AI and data science, leadership and more, with online courses available to health care providers in Florida and around the nation. Continuing medical education options will also be available.
An experiential fellowship program will include in-person and web-based education on the fundamentals of quality, patient safety and population health and capstone research projects using AI to leverage large data sets to solve complex health care delivery issues, creating experts throughout Florida for the benefit of patients around the state.
“The Quality & Patient Safety Academy is a natural extension of the work Patrick Tighe, Chris Giordano and I have done to develop an AI training program for physicians,” said François Modave, Ph.D., a professor of AI in the department of anesthesiology who helped spearhead the college’s AI curriculum and will serve as the assistant dean of the new academy and fellowship program. “I will be working with faculty across the college to identify and develop courses relevant to quality and patient safety in modern, evidence-based medicine. The most exciting aspect of the QPSi is to have the possibility to truly change how care is delivered effectively, efficiently and with a better experience for our patients, all centered around the appropriate use of AI. I think this will lead to truly personalized care, in a safe environment, leading to much-improved health outcomes and patient satisfaction.”
Through the QPSi, the college will continue to expand opportunities to infuse AI in the workforce development arena, such as with recent AI boot camps, datathons and the inaugural continuing medical education conference that took place in April, welcoming clinicians, trainees and scientists from across the state and country.
By applying the expertise of those throughout the institution, focusing on research, education and workforce development advancements, building upon successes and innovating around the applications of AI, the college aims to reimagine health care delivery to impact quality of care, patient safety and, ultimately, patient outcomes.
“The QPSi marks an exciting new chapter, where initiatives blend to create synergies and opportunities to generate and exchange ideas and knowledge,” said Mary Vallianatos, M.S., M.P.A., chief of staff in the College of Medicine Office of the Dean, who has played an instrumental role in the development and launch of the QPSi. “I am excited about the QPSi’s potential to foster valuable connections and translate knowledge into real-world impact. Guided by our culture of curiosity, collaboration and improvement, I look forward to facilitating the development of strategies and operational approaches for the QPSi.”
