BMJ Journal – 32 Diagnostic missed opportunities for diagnosis – addressing the unknown unknown with a safety net team
In this article, co-authored by Albert Karam, Vice President, Data Strategy Analytics at PCCI, missed opportunities for diagnoses are common in diagnostic imaging, particularly when incidental findings require follow-up.
View the full abstract of the paper here: https://bmjopenquality.bmj.com/content/13/Suppl_4/A23.2
Five years after the chaos of COVID-19 comes a new era of AI innovation
By Steve Miff, PhD, President & CEO of PCCI
Five years ago this week, the COVID-19 pandemic threw our world into chaos. But that chaos also sparked an opportunity and a drive to accelerate innovation, through leveraging artificial intelligence with clinical knowledge in unprecedented ways. The results of these Covid-driven efforts have led to a fuller understanding of our community’s health, enabling the initiation of care further upstream and enhancing management of resources and costs in ways benefiting both patients and providers.
I can still remember that week five years ago. I had my bags packed and flight booked to travel to one of the biggest healthcare technology conferences, HIMSS, in Orlando, Fla., when the word came down. The government declared a full lockdown of the country thanks to the pernicious COVID-19 outbreak that the World Health Organization had declared a full-blown pandemic.
Sadly, the cost of COVID-19 in lives— 1.2 million deaths in the U.S. alone— was devastating and the reverberations of the pandemic still affect our daily lives.
However, the chaos and heartache also stimulated a new mindset for collaboration. While the lockdown closed our office doors, it opened new windows to collaborate with other stakeholders across our community. Our teams immediately partnered with Dallas County Health and Human Services (DCHHS), Parkland Health (Parkland) , and other local providers and governmental agencies to help support our North Texas public health leaders and families manage through the ever-changing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic. We deployed a transparent, data-driven set of analytics to inform the dynamic allocation of resources, guide triage protocols in emergency rooms, identify COVID-19 community hotspots, and predict rising waves of hospitalizations and capacity challenges. These collaborations would evolve into support for testing, vaccination distribution, and measuring of community-wide immunity to the infection.
While many of the solutions developed during COVID-19 were industry firsts, we continue today to leverage and expand on many of these same novel applications in AI and non-medical drivers of health (NMDoH) analytics.
Vulnerability Index
The development of the Covid Vulnerability Index and geo-mapped hotspotting created the dynamic dashboards that guided the local pandemic response, including the placement of the testing, and later vaccination sites. This novel approach later expanded into what’s now the Community Vulnerability Index, an industry leading NMDoH analytics method modeling community and neighborhood barriers to health and wellness.
Proximity Index
The Covid Proximity Index was used to predict the risk of infection daily at the individual level using advanced geomapping and data science techniques to guide personal awareness and behaviors, county-wide contact tracing, healthcare provider virtual care scheduling, and ED triage. We are so proud of the United States Patent for AI driven proximity index system and methods (US 12,087,449 B2) that was awarded to PCCI late last year. We’re now leveraging these methods alongside mobility data to understand access to vital services and placement of new access points in the community. The Proximity Index was also featured in the highly respected peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst in a paper authored by Parkland’s CEO Frederick Cerise, MD and others.
Community Protection Modeling
The national Covid Community Protection Dashboard was launched in collaboration with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), Civitas Networks for Health, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to model local behaviors and immunity patterns and help communities manage through new Covid variants and waves. We learned that the dynamic nature of modeling factors and a community’s protection depends on the characteristics of the most prevalent current variant and the immunity from prior vaccination and infections, adjusting for the time elapsed from the most recent immunizing event. These innovations translated into the development and deployment of the Pediatric Asthma Surveillance System (PASS), the soon to be released Diabetes/Hypertension Surveillance System, and the development of a novel Maternal Health Surveillance System. Each of the programs are (or will be) in use in Dallas County and provide life-saving support to its residents.
Better Preparedness for Future Crises
The pandemic brought Parkland, our main public health system, closer to DCHHS and many other public health leaders, working together with PCCI to build new policies and procedures to manage the COVID-19 emergency and future public health crises. And have no doubt about it, it is only a matter of when, not if, we will have more COVID-19-like outbreaks.
In the big picture for public health innovation, COVID-19 created a necessity for us to be innovative and try new ways to solve extremely difficult problems. This same way of thinking is helping us today as we tackle ongoing health challenges through improved collaborations and tools. For example, our Community Vulnerability Compass (CVC) is a tool that can provide deeps insights into the complexities of societal challenges to health, access, and community well-being affecting our neighborhoods throughout Texas. It can tell you, for example, what local daily challenges our residents face down to the block level. The CVC has been adopted by a variety of organizations around the state, led by the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas through its Data Capacity Building Initiative that, within five years, aims to equip over 200 community-based partners with robust data insights from the CVC.
And as previously mentioned, the PASS system is celebrating its two-year anniversary of providing residents of Dallas County unprecedented understanding of their vulnerability to asthma-related risks. PASS is a community-wide effort between the county, PCCI, and Parkland and is publicly available at the DCHHS website. It has been visited by thousands of Dallas County residents and was honored by the Dallas County Commissioners for its service to asthma sufferers and was described by the Dallas Morning News as “a win for Dallas County.” PASS has also been featured in the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst.
The pandemic did put a damper on at least one of our innovations. The book, “Building Connected Communities of Care,” was due to drop via a major release at the Orlando HIMSS convention in March, 2020. The celebration and release was changed and conducted virtually and digitally. This guidebook helps communities and public health leaders create holistic community networks that support any number of health management issues. Thanks to its insights and easy-to-follow steps, “Building Connected Communities of Care” has become an invaluable resource for many public health leaders across the country. It was also featured in the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst for its insights it offers in handling community healthcare crises.
The COVID-19 pandemic was not easy on anyone, but we are wise to remember what happened during those tough times and leverage the innovations and progress towards bigger and broader ongoing impact. We will continue to leverage the critical clinical and community health lessons COVID-19 taught us in innovative programs incorporating the newest AI technology. As a community, while we remember the terrible price COVID-19 cost our friends and families, we should feel some level of optimism that the next time we will be better prepared and stronger together.
Pre-pandemic Post pandemic
About Steve Miff
Dr. Steve Miff is the President and CEO of Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI), a leading, research non-profit, artificial intelligence and cognitive computing organization affiliated with Parkland Health, one of the country’s largest and most progressive safety-net hospitals. Spurred by his passion to use next-generation analytics and technology to help serve the most vulnerable and underserved residents, Steve and his team focus on leveraging technology, data science, and clinical expertise to obtain unique non-medical-determinants-of-health data and incorporate those holistic, personal insights into point-of-care interventions.
PCCI Experts Set to Deliver Major Presentations to the nation’s healthcare leaders at HIMSS25
Starting March 5, PCCI experts are joining leaders from Parkland Health to present cutting-edge AI healthcare programs in prime spots at 2025 HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition in Las Vegas, the epicenter of healthcare innovation.
The presentations are:
Creating a Large Language Model to Catalog Important Radiologist Recommendations
Wednesday, March 5, 3:15 PM to 4:15 PM PACIFIC
Speakers
Abstract
Medical errors, the third leading cause of death in the U.S., include wrong or delayed diagnoses, causing more serious harm than any other type of medical error. Delayed or missed opportunities for diagnoses (MOD) are particularly common in diagnostic imaging, where incidental findings often require further evaluation. At Parkland Health, a major safety-net public health system, 1.7 percent of all CT and MRI studies involve such findings. To address this, a large language model (LLM) is developed that identifies and flags delayed surveillance recommendations from radiologists’ interpretations. These delayed recommendations result in MODs 17 percent of the time. This LLM has been integrated into the electronic health record (EHR) of Parkland Health, enabling centralized management and navigation of these cases. Our results demonstrate 95 percent accuracy in identifying imaging that requires follow-up based on physician notes and 85 percent accuracy in determining the appropriate timing for follow-up. This work outlines the process, development, tools, current performance, and future plans for building an automated system to enhance image surveillance and mitigate MODs in diagnostic imaging.
https://app.himssconference.com/widget/event/himss-2025/planning/UGxhbm5pbmdfMjExNzI1Mw==
Know Thy Patient: AI/ML-Driven Clustering of Diabetes/Hypertension Populations
Thursday, March 6, 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM (US/Pacific)
Speakers:
Abstract
In Dallas County’s safety-net population, an AI/machine learning-driven unsupervised clustering algorithm identifies clusters of diabetic and hypertensive patients with a combination of social and clinical risk factors associated with suboptimal quality of care (e.g., inadequate of Hemoglobin A1C monitoring) and poor disease control. Clusters analyses uncover underlying, actionable risk drivers such as criminal justice involvement and immigration concerns that require innovative, culturally-responsive approaches for a sustainable engagement of these vulnerable populations into effective preventive care. Additional in-depth analyses identify missed and potential opportunities for care engagement that inform innovative workflow modifications leveraging traditional (e.g., EHR-based standing orders) and nontraditional (e.g., telehealth modalities and mobile units) approaches to effectively engage and support these vulnerable populations and improve health quality, outcomes and equity countywide. The data sets and analytical approaches are scalable and replicable to other vulnerable populations nationwide.
https://app.himssconference.com/widget/event/himss-2025/planning/UGxhbm5pbmdfMjExNzI0NQ==
Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation releases its 2025 annual impact report highlighting recent accomplishments
Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI), a non-profit innovation and research institute for advanced data science and non-medical drivers of health (NMDoH) innovation, has released its annual impact report detailing its successes and activities from 2024.
To view or download an e-version of the report go to: PCCI 2025 Annual Impact Report
“The Annual Impact Report features some of the outstanding results the team at PCCI had in 2024,” said Steve Miff, PhD, President and CEO of PCCI. “The report highlights our expanding AI in medicine for underserved populations solutions through novel programs and partnerships in North Texas and around the state.”
These AI-focused programs featured in the report include PCCI’s leadership in advanced AI and NMDoH analytics for clinical decision support and population health and surveillance systems. The report also features the national activities and engagements of PCCI experts and leaders who drive the organization’s programs and mission to support the underserved.
“I am very excited to share the accomplishments and leadership of our team and our partners,” Miff said. “Our mission of driving innovation in AI for underserved populations is at the heart of everything we do. This past year our team built and deployed novel and scalable solutions and contributed to the emerging knowledge and guidelines for ethical, responsible and equitable uses of AI in healthcare.”
To receive a printed version of the PCCI 2025 Annual Impact Report, email your request to Info@pccinnovation.org.
About PCCI
The Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) is a not-for-profit, mission-driven organization with industry-leading expertise in the practical applications of artificial intelligence, machine learning and NMDoH data modeling to address the needs of vulnerable populations. PCCI started as a department within Parkland Health and was spun out as an independent organization in 2012. PCCI strives to leapfrog the status quo by harnessing the transformative potential of data. Our unique capabilities allow us to provide innovative, actionable solutions that more effectively identify needs, prioritize services, empower providers, and engage patients.
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PCCI named to Dallas 500 list of leading organization in North Texas
D CEO’s signature special publication, the Dallas 500, features profiles of the most influential North Texas executives in more than 50 industry categories. The 2025 book, our 10th edition, includes well known, emerging, and behind-the-scenes leaders who make the regional economy tick. Editors make selections after months of research and hundreds of personal interviews. Along with providing business advice and industry insights, this national award-winning book gives readers a glimpse at the human side of DFW’s most powerful leaders.
Joining this list for the fifth year in a row is PCCI. CEO Steve Miff, PhD, who attended the annual event recognizing these outstanding leaders.
For more information, go to: https://www.dmagazine.com/dallas-500/profile/steve-miff-parkland-center-for-clinical-innovation
Disparities Next Door: PCCI’s Community Vulnerability Compass spotlights areas of increased vulnerability across Dallas County
Dallas, Texas (Sept. 19, 2024) – Researchers at Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) have highlighted areas of increased vulnerability within Dallas County after conducting an analysis using PCCI’s Community Vulnerability Compass (CVC). The findings include a number of pockets of highly vulnerable areas within many low vulnerability ZIP Codes.
PCCI’s CVC analyzes, at the ZIP Code, census tract, and block-group level, where a community’s most vulnerable residents live and the root cause factors limiting these residents’ ability to thrive. The CVC analyzes 26 clinical and socio-economic indicators that reveal the health, resiliency, and economic vibrancy of neighborhoods. CVC’s analyses provide true, holistic pictures of who needs the most assistance and where to find them, enabling proactive support of those in need.
It is well-documented that many ZIP Codes in the south and southeast areas of Dallas County (see image 1) are home to long-standing socio-economically disadvantaged populations and have the highest vulnerability rating. However, PCCI’s analysis underscores what Parkland and other officials have long stated: that in addition to the south and southeast regions, there are other ZIP Codes in Dallas County with low vulnerability but are home to highly vulnerable block groups. Specifically, these include 18 Dallas County ZIP Codes with an overall very low or low vulnerability rating that contain within them 48 block groups with high or very high vulnerability ratings. The 18 ZIP Codes have a total population of 590,971, with 72,954 (12.3%) of their residents living in these very high vulnerability blocks groups.
“In some cases, we find that a very high area of vulnerability is across the street from a very low area of vulnerability.“
Steve Miff, phd, President and CEO of PCCI
The “very high” designation indicates that these neighborhoods are in the top 20% of vulnerability when compared to the rest of Dallas County. CVC vulnerability groupings are localized to the Dallas County geography and broken into quintiles and clustered into very low, low, moderate, high and very high areas.
“For good reason we focus a lot of our efforts on supporting the underserved communities in south and southeast Dallas County, but CVC empowers us with refined geographic precision to examine our broader community and uncover data that provides a high-resolution understanding of social vulnerability factors within other micro-geographies in our community,” said Steve Miff, PhD, President and CEO of PCCI. “In this examination, CVC highlights areas of deprivation that may be masked by gentrification and/or historical surrounding prosperity. In some cases, we find that a very high area of vulnerability is across the street from a very low area of vulnerability.”
For example, ZIP Code 75206, located in the Greenland Hills area that runs along Highway 75 and is bordered by Highway 12 and Skillman Avenue, is rated very low vulnerability by the CVC, but includes four block groups that are rated by the CVC as high and very high vulnerability. In this ZIP Code, which has a total population of 38,209, there are 2,661 (7%) who experience high or the very highest levels of vulnerability as measured by the CVC.
One ZIP Code of note, 75254, located north of the Galleria between Dallas North Tollway and Coit Road, has an overall low vulnerability rating, but includes 8 high or very high vulnerability blocks. Of this area’s total population of 24,047, 12,522 (52.1%) residents experience high or very high vulnerability. (see Image 2)
Additionally, ZIP Code 75230, which is considered to be an economically advantaged area in North Dallas between Walnut Hill and Interstate 635, includes a very high vulnerability block group.
“The lesson is that we need to look beyond our expectations and understand that disparities and vulnerability are all around us no matter how prosperous a given area may appear,” Miff said. “We hope this will bring an additional level of high-resolution, hyper-localized understanding of social vulnerability factors and empower leaders across all communities with relevant information to improve and sustain the lives of all Dallas County residents. North Texas has outstanding public health leaders who are doing a great job supporting vulnerable populations throughout the county and we hope this helps them as well as policymakers, community-based organizations and others who are vested in helping mitigate disparity.”
IMAGE 1
IMAGE 2
About PCCI
The Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) is a not-for-profit, mission-driven organization with industry-leading expertise in the responsible application of artificial intelligence, machine learning and NMDOH data modeling to address the needs of vulnerable populations. PCCI started as a department within Parkland Health and was spun out as an independent organization in 2012. PCCI strives to leapfrog the status quo by harnessing the transformative potential of data. Our unique capabilities allow us to provide innovative, actionable solutions that more effectively identify needs, prioritize services, empower providers, and engage patients.
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AI Is Working For Us Now, Helping Us Heal and Prevent Harm
By Steve Miff, PhD, President & CEO of PCCI
We can’t let artificial intelligence (AI) continue to be defined by science fiction, deep fakes, and plagiarized term papers, because today―right now― responsible uses of AI in medical care are helping prevent harm, improve clinical decisions, and reduce costs of care. Is there too much unjustified hype and exuberance over AI? Absolutely! Are there unsubstantiated claims and sometimes dangerous promises? Unfortunately, yes. However, there are also many examples of ethical, responsible and equitable uses of AI that are streamlining operations, improving efficiencies, and yes, even helping physicians and clinical teams augment their insights and expertise to save lives.
AI is also not new. While the history of artificial intelligence (AI) can be traced to antiquity hypothesized by master craftsmen, modern AI really started with the invention of the programmable digital computer based on mathematical reasoning in the 1940s. In the last decade, the true potential (and risk) of AI and Machine Learning algorithms have accelerated and can simply be classified into predictive, prescriptive and generative AI/ML, with the latter creating the most excitement and controversy over the last 12-24 months.
At PCCI, we have been researching, developing, deploying and testing applications of AI and machine learning for a decade with a focus on applying these innovative concepts to those who serve the most vulnerable individuals and communities. With every project that we’ve embarked on, we’ve followed sound scientific principles and a prescriptive approach to development, testing and implementation that keeps the clinician in full control and with the utmost transparency, and the patient at the center. While the AI part is sexy, the governance, processes, and discipline you put around it makes it reliable, responsible and effective. We developed and optimized our own processes over type and rely on a core set of core principles:
These are the PCCI principles and processes. For a more generally applicable and broadly vetted AI life cycle management approach, visit the Health AI Partnership Publishes Best-Practice Guides | Healthcare Innovation (hcinnovationgroup.com). Also, the recent paper “Development and preliminary testing of Health Equity Across the AI Lifecycle (HEAAL)” is a wonderful asset. PCCI has been fortunate to learn and contribute to these projects.
At PCCI speed to market is a self-imposed urgency and profits are not a measure of success. What our AI and machine learning systems aim to do is help providers make more informed clinical decisions, optimize resources to expand access, offer synthesized data insights that help improve health outcomes, and educate our region’s health leaders and residents.
Some of these AI predictive model applications came to life during the COVID-19 pandemic. We were able to use the established infrastructure, processes and expertise to create several programs that made significant impact on how Dallas County managed through the pandemic. A few of these AI and predictive models included:
Capacity Forecasting Model. Leveraging an AI algorithm based on geo mapping, we helped Parkland manage resources by creating an effective model that helped forecast possible needs for hospital beds, ICU, staffing needs, and development of workflows.
Proximity Index (PI). This AI predictive triage model empowered frontline clinical and population health teams to proactively manage high-risk patients and reduce potential COVID spread from asymptomatic patients in hospital and community settings.
Vulnerability Index (VI). This AI predictive model allowed public health leaders to understand the hardest hit populations in Dallas County and then drive community response.
Beyond COVID, PCCI’s AI-driven clinical decision support and population health programs guide policy and direct resources where they are needed most. PCCI’s team members have extensive experience deploying, testing, and validating a wide array of multi-institution, algorithm-driven protocols in clinical settings. Examples include:
Parkland Trauma Index of Mortality (PTIM)
The PTIM machine learning algorithm is the only known model that uses electronic medical record data to predict ―every hour ― 48-hour mortality during the first 72 hours of hospitalization, thus evolving with the patient’s physiologic response to trauma. Over a one-year period, PTIM has correctly identified 89% of the high-risk trauma patients and 92% of the low-risk trauma patients.
Inpatient (IP) Medicine Sepsis AI Program
The sepsis management system is real-time predictive model that identifies and triggers interventions of patients who are at high risk for sepsis both upon presentation and after being admitted to the hospital. The IP Sepsis model is unique as it enables Parkland to identify cases of sepsis that were not present on admission.
STI-HIV PrEP Model
The model will be able to predict those at-risk for hiv infection and eligible for prep in order to reduce HIV transmission. The PrEP predictive model is being developed using data from Parkland’s EHR, pertinent public open-source data on NMDOH, and DCHHS STI data. The model will be able to predict those at-risk for HIV infection and eligible for PrEP to reduce HIV transmission.
Preterm Birth Prevention (PTB) AI-driven Program
To better serve pregnant women, PCCI and the Parkland Community Health Plan developed and implemented an innovative Preterm Birth (PTB) Prevention program that uses a machine learning algorithm, healthcare data, and Non Medical Drivers of Health to identify pregnant women who are at a higher risk of PTB within vulnerable communities. The PTB program consistently risk stratifies about 13,000 pregnant women from vulnerable communities per year.
Pediatric Asthma Surveillance System (PASS)
PCCI developed the PASS to help prevent pediatric asthma from harming children in Dallas by providing a single source of community insights to identify children that have higher vulnerability to poor asthma outcomes and highlight areas of health disparities. The PASS interactive dashboard has been visited by nearly 3,000 Dallas County residents.
Many of these programs have proven to be cost effective, scalable and successful. We will continue to invest and explore new ways to apply AI solutions in collaboration with some of the top healthcare providers and public health organizations in the nation.
Whether everyone knows it, understands it or even likes it, AI is here to stay and is exploding in healthcare, and making a huge difference in our lives. At PCCI we will continue to focus on applying and localizing these powerful concepts with those who serve the most vulnerable individuals and communities. That’s our mission and focus and will remain that way. This specifically means continuing our work with Parkland Health (Parkland), PCHP, Dallas County Health & Human Services Department (DCHHS), the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, and expanding our partnerships with other similar organizations in San Antonio, Austin, Atlanta and other communities.
Because of the responsibility that has been entrusted in us, we feel the urgency and responsibility to not only continue to learn from others pioneering responsible applications of AI, but contribute to the knowledge, voice and narrative of AI nationally. That’s why we’re appreciative to be included and actively participate in national AI committees and collaboratives, such as the Health AI Partnership advisory board, the National Academy of Medicine AI Adoption and Code of Conduct committee, the White House Health AI commitments executive group, as well as several other national meetings and forums. We bring the important perspective and the unique challenges of leveraging these new and exciting capabilities in an equitable was and make these innovations accessible to underrepresented and underserved communities.
For many the promise of AI is about what’s on the horizon, but I see the promise of AI delivering results and innovations today. With responsible, equitable, reliable and transparent applications, the future is now.
About Steve Miff
Dr. Steve Miff is the President and CEO of Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI), a leading, non-profit, artificial intelligence and cognitive computing organization affiliated with Parkland Health, one of the country’s largest and most progressive safety-net hospitals. Spurred by his passion to use next-generation analytics and technology to help serve the most vulnerable and underserved residents, Steve and his team focus on leveraging technology, data science, and clinical expertise to obtain unique non-medical-determinants-of-health data and incorporate those holistic, personal insights into point-of-care interventions. Steve was the recipient of the 2020 Dallas Business Journal Most Inspiring
University Health Transplant Institute partners with Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation to implement innovative data management to improve patient outcomes
Dallas, Texas – University Health Transplant Institute, dedicated to restoring health and life to patients with organ failure through prevention treatments and transplantation services, is partnering with the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI). The goal of this partnership is to improve care and outcomes by combining artificial intelligence with clinical expertise, to enhance the Transplant Institute’s digital data environment allowing for enhanced data access and advanced analytics to enable transformative innovation and high-impact research.
Currently in the implementation phase, PCCI is expanding University Health’s capabilities based on deploying PCCI’s innovative, cloud-based, digital data environment, ISTHMUSTM, and leveraging PCCI’s Community Vulnerability Compass (CVC), a non-medical drivers of health (NMDoH) data integration and visualization tool enabling deeper understanding of the context and complexities of the social barriers to health, access and well-being of Transplant Institute patients. The CVC uses 26 clinical and socio-economic indicators clustered into four thematic domains denoting the health, resiliency and economic vibrancy of neighborhoods. The first application of these innovative digital technologies and enriched data assets was the launch of the industry-leading Transplant Quality and Research DataMart, an important collaboration between University Health Transplant Institute and PCCI.
“With the rollout of PCCI’s Transplant Quality and Research DataMart, these projects will take just hours to complete. This reduced time to make data available to our fabulous team, in turn, will speed up our research and quality processes by enabling our physicians and staff to access data exponentially faster as they work to save more lives.” – Francisco G. Cigarroa, MD, Professor of Surgery and Director, Alvarez Transplant Center
In partnership with UT Health San Antonio, the University Health Transplant Institute is one of the top five U.S. transplant centers based on survival outcomes in kidney, liver, and lung transplantation. Its innovations in clinical practice and management have driven utilization of higher-risk donor organs and expanded opportunities for more patients to receive lifesaving transplantation. The Transplant Quality and Research DataMart will be able to place equitable data insights in the hands of research and care teams, while serving as a catalyst to new breakthroughs in understanding barriers and their impact to health, and ultimately providing higher quality of care to residents of Bexar County and beyond.
“We are proud to support University Health and its mission to provide high impact and innovative care,” said PCCI CEO, Steve Miff, PhD. “Our work will support University Health’s position as a leader in the transplant field with the implementation of a digital data environment and a transplant quality and research DataMart. This will allow the University Health Transplant Institute team to enhance and extend research and outcome studies and expand cross-industry collaborations. Adding CVC, our advanced NMDoH analytics tool, University Health will be better able to understand the NMDoH for their whole transplant population and better serve and provide enhanced access and support for their patients across the state.”
“Our Transplant DataMart is the first of its kind to use data from a large transplant program in a standardized cloud-based format by incorporating clinical metrics and non-medical drivers of health that are connected to a network of databases and other researchers across the world. This unique system will help us improve outcomes for transplant patients, perform advanced analytics, reduce barriers to care and increase grant and research opportunities to expand and share our work,” said Bryan Alsip, MD, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of University Health.
This partnership will help University Health foster additional grant and research opportunities by moving the organization into the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) program. OHDSI is an international network of researchers and observational health databases with a central coordinating center housed at Columbia University. Integrating OHDSI, the OMOP Common Data Model, and the OHDSI software tools into the UH ISTHMUS™ ecosystem enables University Health teams’ access to the open community data standards, open-source software, and ways to apply scientific best practices to generate reliable clinical evidence.
Also, PCCI’s CVC will allow the University Health Transplant Institute to analyze a patient’s NMDoH to help make informed, equitable decisions. The CVC gives the team the ability to query a patient’s address to assess the NMDoH factors impacting that patient’s residential block group. This informs and enables more targeted screening questions and the collection of enhanced data to facilitate collaboration with community and health care organizations to support current and prospective patients throughout their transplant journey.
“University Health Transplant Institute has a 53-year history of cutting-edge innovation and superior survival rates. We are now one of the two largest living donor programs in the US and number one in survival. We also have the top survival and transplant rates for kidney and lung in our region including pediatrics. We have continually expanded access to our unique patient population through new medical techniques in lung, liver, and kidney transplantation and hepatocellular tumors and cancers,” said Francisco G. Cigarroa, MD, Professor of Surgery and Director, Alvarez Transplant Center, Malú & Carlos Alvarez Distinguished University Chair, and Ashbel Smith Professorship in Surgery.
“However, data projects to analyze and share our successes, can take us weeks or even months to complete. With the rollout of PCCI’s Transplant Quality and Research DataMart, these projects will take just hours to complete. This reduced time to make data available to our fabulous team, in turn, will speed up our research and quality processes by enabling our physicians and staff to access data exponentially faster as they work to save more lives. This in turn will lead to better outcomes and enhanced access to life-saving transplantation. This also allows us to share our successes with the transplant community around the world to make lives better,” Cigarroa added.
ABOUT UNIVERSITY HEALTH
University Health is the only locally-owned health system in San Antonio. For more than 100 years, University Health has been here to heal, improve health, train the next generation of medical professionals and ensure the people of San Antonio, Bexar County and South Texas have access to primary and advanced specialty care close to home. Specialized services include the region’s only Level I trauma center for both adults and children, and maternal and neonatal intensive care centers designated at the highest levels by the State of Texas. As the region’s only academic health system, University Health is a hub of innovation and discovery, committed to delivering patient-centered, culturally competent, high-quality and compassionate care, based on a strong foundation of outcomes‐based research and innovative teaching. Learn more at UniversityHealth.com.
About PCCI
The Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) is a not-for-profit, mission-driven organization with industry-leading expertise in the practical applications of artificial intelligence, machine learning and NMDOH data modeling to address the needs of vulnerable populations. PCCI started as a department within
Parkland Health and was spun out as an independent organization in 2012. PCCI strives to leapfrog the status quo by harnessing the transformative potential of data. Our unique capabilities allow us to provide innovative, actionable solutions that more effectively identify needs, prioritize services, empower providers, and engage patients.
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North Texas Giving Day: Join us in our journey to bring health innovation to the most vulnerable communities
North Texas Giving Day, set for Sept. 19 but open to donations now, is a powerful opportunity to unite our community in supporting the causes we care about most. At PCCI, our team of clinicians and expert data scientists strive to support the health of vulnerable communities in North Texas through the responsible applications of AI and non-medical drivers of health (NMDoH) analytics. NMDoH are the conditions in the places where people live, learn, work and play (e.g., food insecurity, housing, transportation) that affect a wide range of health risks and outcomes. These external social, economic and environmental factors have been shown to be responsible for upwards of 80% of what keeps us healthy or, conversely, leads to illness and an impaired quality of life. As a non-profit, your support is critical to this mission.
Why support PCCI? You may have felt the impact of PCCI’s innovative AI and NMDoH programs during the COVID-19 pandemic when you learned about the spread of the infection through our neighborhoods. Or if you’ve checked the Dallas County Health & Human Services Department’s Pediatric Asthma Surveillance System dashboard―developed by PCCI― that offers insights into the asthma risks on your neighborhood. And you may know a pregnant woman who was able to bring their child to full term thanks to the Parkland Health’s Preterm Birth Prevention program powered by PCCI’s AI. We aim to ensure that each of our innovations are targeted to the unique needs of our community and equitably applied and support the most vulnerable in our neighborhoods.
Your Support is Critical in Creating Opportunities for Women in Technology
Benefiting the most from your support will be PCCI’s women in data science intern program, the Sachs Summer Scholars. PCCI developed this STEM-focused program to help open doors to women seeking careers in data science.This is an industry challenge as, according to Girls Who Code, from 1984 to today, the number of female computer science graduates dropped from 37% to 18% and computing degrees are less likely to be awarded to women in all racial and ethnic groups. These trends are taking place in spite of the fact that women outnumber men overall at universities. At PCCI we are committed to reversing this trend and improving diversity in the data science and technology industry all while focusing their contributions, efforts and learnings towards innovative, practical solutions supporting our local community.
Your support will enable PCCI to continue to provide unrivaled opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and doctoral female students from diverse backgrounds to work side-by-side with PCCI data scientists and clinicians and directly contribute to projects benefiting the community such as improving maternal health and pediatric asthma outcomes, lowering suicide risk, and developing a community surveillance system for diabetes and hypertension. In 2024, PCCI reported that 71.43% of participating interns were from diverse ethnicities. PCCI’s internship program helps these students to improve their self-confidence, hone their programming and analytics skills in order to open up greater career opportunities, fuel their passion for learning and helping their community, and build lifelong memories of meaningful accomplishments.
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Our programs have proven to be cost effective, scalable, and successful. With your support, we will continue to explore new ways to apply AI solutions in collaboration with some of the top healthcare providers and public health organizations in the nation.
Early giving is open now, and every dollar counts. Your donation today will help us build momentum and maximize our impact on North Texas Giving Day. Together, we can create a brighter future for our community. Support PCCI in shaping the future of healthcare technology in North Texas.
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PCCI introduces its 2024 class of Sachs Summer Scholars Interns
STEM focused program sets female students side-by-side with AI experts, data scientists and clinicians
PCCI’s summer intern program, Sachs Summer Scholars, Advancing Women in STEM and Technology Summer Internship, has begun, demonstrating PCCI’s ongoing commitment to improving gender diversity in the data science and technology industry. This program has become the one of the premier internship in North Texas that immerses students in meaningful, real word projects with actual impact. This includes providing each intern direct experience with innovative healthcare, groundbreaking artificial intelligence programs and Non Medical Drivers of Health projects. The aim is to support and promote practical applications of analytics, computing, and data science all while advancing the spirit of mentorship and advancement of female students.
The 2024 class of Sachs Summer Scholars includes seven women from diverse backgrounds, hailing from six different universities. Working side-by-side with PCCI clinical and data science experts to hone their programming and analytics skills while building life-long memories of meaningful accomplishments, the interns will work on core projects at PCCI including: disease surveillance systems, brain care predictive modeling, suicide risk screening, jail health and pediatric asthma risk prediction, to name a few.
This class will present findings based on their work with PCCI at a presentation on August 9th, at Pegasus Park.
The interns are, from left to right: Ozgur Aksoy, University of Texas – Dallas; Serap Ogut, Southern Methodist University; Autumn Carey Noon, Ohio State University; Bengisu Yarimbas, University of North Texas; Emily Thompson, Southern Methodist University; Ferona Bustani, University of Texas – Austin; Saniah Safat, University of Texas – Austin.
