SAN DIEGO — A team of doctors and scientists at UCSD will spend the next three years working on a model that will use artificial intelligence to help doctors assess a patient's risk level of addiction to opioids.
Doctor Rodney Gabriel is the principle investigator of the study, funded by Wellcome Leap, an organization that grants money to research projects that help fight addiction.
"Imagine we can have a single test or a battery of tests, where any patient can take it and it will tell you this patient has a high risk of addiction," said Gabriel.
The model takes a patient's genetic, biological, and environmental conditions to assess their risk for addiction.
"We don't have enough resources in our healthcare system to treat every patient extensively, but what if we could find a way to better identify those that need more help early on so we can allocate our resources more effectively," said Gabriel.
If a patient is labelled high risk their treatment is up to their doctor, but with the knowledge provided by the model they could still be able to receive pain medicine, along with resources like extra monitoring and check-ins.
"A patient's healthcare journey changes everyday, if we can track using the electronic medical records system how their risk changes as their healthcare changes and let doctors know hey because of this, the patients risk of addiction is increasing, we'll do this using AI," said Gabriel.
Gabriel also acknowledged the fear that is sometimes associated with Artificial Intelligence and shared how his team plans to combat that.
"Why people are so critical of AI is because they don't know why AI is saying such things, it's not transparent. So we have to do a better job at having the model tell healthcare providers why it is coming up with these predictions," said Gabriel.
Gabriel's goal is to ensure patient populations around the world can use the model to prevent opioid addiction.
"The AI technology I am talking about is something that any institution that has an electronic records system and the resources to integrate it can use this system too," said Gabriel .
Pain management can be a very difficult task for a doctor, and a model like this can give them peace of mind when it comes to working with their patients.
"the goal is to use this technology to do a better job of providing the right care to the right patient at the right time," said Gabriel.
WATCH RELATED: California gets its first artificial intelligence associate's degree (March 6, 2024)