Mayo Clinic

Published by Daniel at October 1, 2021

Mayo Clinic is an US-based vanguard leader with several collaborative projects in the AI field, promising practice-changing outcomes for patients...

Mayo Clinic is a healthcare institution founded on September 30 of 1889, in Rochester, Minnesota. This hospital is one of the most prominent institutions worldwide, with satellite campuses in Florida and Arizona. The clinic has been ranked #1 for five years consecutively and currently occupies the #1 position in the US News Best Hospitals Honor Roll of 2020-2021. Famous for its clinical practice, top education, and cutting-edge research team, it is one of the pioneer healthcare facilities that has been implementing artificial intelligence in medicine using a patient-focused model of care. As one of its central goals, Mayo Clinic keeps clinicians and patients at the center of patient care decision-making. It has also been joining forces with technological companies for years to provide quality service to patients and eliminate future obstacles in medicine such as information overload, delays in clinical trials, and access to physician care in rural communities.(1,2,)

A commitment to the future

Dr. Gianrico Farrugia, President and CEO of Mayo Clinic, expressed that the institution “as a global leader in health care, has a critical role to play” in developing initiatives to improve people’s lives everywhere and transform medicine for the next decades. This goal had not changed since 2014 when Mayo Clinic consolidated one of the earliest deals of partnerships with AI powerhouse IBM Watson to improve clinical trial research, treatment decisions for cancer patients, and insight-gathering from electronic health records.

Using Watson will allow Mayo’s research and clinical teams to spend more time focusing on the patient’s needs rather than the laborious process of matching eligibility requirements to each patient’s situation.(3,4,5)

This goal had not changed since 2014 when Mayo Clinic consolidated one of the earliest deals of partnerships with AI powerhouse IBM Watson to improve clinical trial research, treatment decisions for cancer patients, and insight-gathering from electronic health records.

EKGs where they are needed the most

In 2016 Mayo worked with AI technology company AliveCor to build a mobile electrocardiogram to track heart function and flag abnormalities. With his collaboration, the company focused on joining Mayo research to show the benefits of AI in detecting elevated blood potassium levels, a potentially fatal condition, by reading EKG data. The health system agreed to supply more than 2.8 million digital EKGs taken on patients over 20 years. They also partnered on a related project to use AI to detect atrial fibrillation related to increased risk of stroke and other cardiovascular problems. This work led to the development of the Kardia band, the first FDA-approved algorithm to help consumers diagnose heart conditions.(6,7)

They also partnered on a related project to use AI to detect atrial fibrillation related to increased risk of stroke and other cardiovascular problems. This work led to the development of the Kardia band, the first FDA-approved algorithm to help consumers diagnose heart conditions.(6,7)

Precise medicine to target cancer

One year later, the Center for Individualized Medicine of the leading US hospital started a new collaboration with Tempus, a health tech company focused on developing personalized cancer therapies using a machine learning platform. The partnership involved using molecular sequencing and analysis for 1,000 Mayo Clinic patients participating in immunotherapy studies for several cancer types, including lung cancer, melanoma, bladder cancer, breast cancer, and lymphoma. The head of Medical Oncology, Dr. Minetta Liu, mentioned that this collaboration allowed physicians to generate high-quality clinical grade tumor sequencing to impact ongoing patient care. The IMPRESS project is currently in the Research and Development phase. Still, the goal is to predict patients’ responses to FDA-approved drugs that attack the Programmed Death 1 (PD-1) pathway to treat cancer in all stages more effectively.(8,9,10)

New hopes in new horizons

Mayo Clinic uses cutting-edge medical expertise in deep learning projects to transform healthcare delivery worldwide. So far, the hospital has at least 16 data deals with AI technology companies. Mayo Clinic leaders have identified several areas of opportunity for AI in healthcare, improving healthcare in several specialties such as cardiology, neurology (early detection of glioblastoma and AI-enhanced eye movement tracking for early-stage dementia), oncology (AI-enhanced MRI scans for pancreatic cancer), and radiology. However, deep learning is not limited to these areas.Along with Nference and Darwin AI technology, the clinic launched Qrativ, an AI-driven platform that seeks to discover and develop treatments for diseases with unmet medical needs.

Odonata Health is another of the AI projects of Mayo Clinic in the development of a wearable device to track a woman’s health during pregnancy. Cadence Neuroscience’s partnership with the clinic aims to find therapies for epileptic seizures that focus on electrical stimulation to brain tissue. A collaboration with Eko follows a digital stethoscope to detect early signs of heart failure.

Another company associated with Mayo Clinic is Viome which focuses on understanding how nutrition affects obesity, insomnia, and heart disease. The successful partnership with the National Institutes of Health and Global Good screen cervical cancer has delivered results with an accuracy as high as 91% in detecting precarious cancer changes compared to 69% and 71% by physicians and traditional cytology, respectively.(11,12,13,14)

However, deep learning is not limited to these areas.Along with Nference and Darwin AI technology, the clinic launched Qrativ, an AI-driven platform that seeks to discover and develop treatments for diseases with unmet medical needs.

Feet on the ground but mind on the clouds

One of the most innovative partnerships of Mayo Clinic is the joined project with Google Cloud in 2019. This platform is a 10-year strategy that will serve as the home for all Mayo Clinic’s data. However, the clinic will maintain overarching control of its use, boosting its ability to conduct medical research and to develop new machine learning models designed to improve treatment precision and clinical outcomes of diseases.(15,16)

Understanding the uncertain

Nowadays, Mayo Clinic works in partnership with Current Health’s remote patient management to create solutions that would help better understand COVID-19, provide care to patients, and develop therapeutic options.(17,18,19)

This algorithm, developed by Mayo Clinic, involves wearing sensors to collect information that will transmit real-time monitoring to a platform and classify patient status from rapidly deteriorating patients needing immediate hospital care to stable cases. More than 40% of healthcare facilities worldwide are using remote patient monitoring to manage patient health. Another project of Mayo Clinic that involves AI technology includes a new collaboration with Diagnostic Robotics. This company will develop a platform that predicts patients’ hospitalization risk and triages them to get effective care using EHR data to support emergency departments and urgent care clinics.(17,18,19)

In July 2020, Ultromics, a UK health-tech company led by Dr. Patricia Pellikka, joined forces with Mayo Clinic. Their project uses an AI software called EchoGo Core to create a map of cardiological features of COVID-19 patients using echocardiograms to have more information on how the virus affects the cardiovascular system. This project will help physicians rapidly triage and treat high-risk patients.