Making AI Impactful in Healthcare | Dr. Soroush Saghafian
Guest Speaker: Dr. Soroush Saghafian
Moderated by Dr. Reza Rawassizadeh, Assistant Prof of CS
This virtual event will be held on-
Monday, 14th April, 2025 at 10:00 am EST
Abstract: There is increasing evidence that Machine Learning and Artificial intelligence algorithms can be used to enhance clinical care. In this talk, I address two critical aspects that can significantly improve the impact of such algorithms in healthcare practices: (1) moving beyond associations and creating algorithms capable of causal reasoning under ambiguity, and (2) a human-algorithm “centaur” model of care and decision-making, in which the power of human intuition is combined with the outstanding capabilities of algorithms. I describe our latest research on these subjects at the Public Impact Analytics Science Lab (PIAS-Lab) at Harvard, and discuss findings based on our various collaborations with the Mayo Clinic, Mass General Hospital, and some other public and private organizations.
Bio: Soroush Saghafian is an Associate Professor at Harvard University. He is the founder and director of the Public Impact Analytics Science Lab (PIAS-Lab) at Harvard, which is devoted to advancing and applying the science of analytics to solving societal problems that can have a public impact. He also serves as a core faculty member for the Harvard Center for Health Decision Science, a faculty affiliate for (a) the Harvard Data Science Initiative, (b) Harvard Ph.D. Program in Health Policy, and (c) the Harvard Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, and is an associate faculty member at the Harvard Ariadne Labs (a pioneer lab in health systems innovation). He is an expert in healthcare analytics and healthcare operations management and has been collaborating with a variety of hospitals to improve their operational efficiency, patient flow, medical decision-making, and more broadly, healthcare delivery policies. Dr. Saghafian’s research has appeared in the news, including in pieces and interviews by PBS News, NBC News, Fast Company, Euronews, The Hill, National Academy of Medicine, Harvard Crimson, New-Meical.net, Industry Global News 24, Global Health News Wire, Eureka Alert (American Association for the Advancement of Science), Medscape, Medical Xpress, Managed Healthcare Executive, DOTmed, ABC Channel (TV), Devdiscourse.com, and INFORMS. He has won various awards for his research, including the INFORMS MSOM Young Scholar Prize for “outstanding contributions to scholarship in operations management,” INFORMS MSOM Responsible Research Award (second place) for “contributing knowledge that may have implications for making the world a better place,” the Inaugural INFORMS Mehrotra Research Excellence Award “for significant contributions to the practice of health applications through operations research and management science modeling and methodologies,” INFORMS Pierskalla Award “for the best research paper in healthcare,” and the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) College of Healthcare Best Paper Award. He serves on the editorial board of a few journals, including Management Science, Operations Research, POM, Service Science, and IISE Transactions [Full CV here].