Category Archives: Research News

2023 Hearst Health Prize in Partnership with the UCLA Center for SMART Health $100,000 prize awarded for Stanford Medicine’s AI solution for identifying people with heart attack risk The 2023 Hearst Health Prize winner from Stanford Medicine and leadership from the UCLA Center for SMART Health and Hearst Health, and judges for the competition. Left to right: Charles Tuchinda, MD, Hearst Health; Gregory Dorn, MD, MPH, Hearst Health; Rochelle Cross, Hearst Health; Ivelyse Andino, Radical Health; Alexander Sandhu, MD, MS, Stanford Medicine; Jennifer K. Wagner, JD, PhD, Penn State; Alex Bui, PhD, UCLA; Arash Naeim, MD, PhD, UCLA. The $100,000 Hearst Health Prize is an annual award for excellence in data science in healthcare.

LOS ANGELES, May 12, 2023 – The UCLA Center for SMART Health, an interdisciplinary collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of healthcare through emergent data and technologies, and Hearst Health, a division of Hearst and leader in care guidance, announced Thursday that Stanford Medicine is the winner of the 2023 Hearst Health Prize. Stanford won the award for its artificial intelligence (AI) solution that helps identify patients at risk for heart attack.

The $100,000 award for excellence in data science in healthcare was presented by Gregory Dorn, MD, MPH, president of Hearst Health; Arash Naeim, MD, PhD, co-director of UCLA Center for SMART Health; and Alex Bui, PhD, co-director of the UCLA Center for SMART Health, during the proceedings of UCLA Health Data Day.

“All of us on the Stanford Medicine team share a vision for designing more advanced systems to deliver potentially life-saving interventions to patients,” said Alexander Sandhu, MD, MS, the Stanford Medicine project lead who accepted the award. “As a physician, it is tremendously gratifying to see the powerful role data science can play in improving clinical care.”

Stanford’s Incidental Coronary Calcium team aimed to use the detection of coronary artery calcium from computed tomography (CT) of the chest to improve the primary prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease [WATCH VIDEO]. Coronary artery calcium — an established predictor of heart attack and stroke—can be identified on chest CTs. About 15 million chest CTs are performed for various reasons in the US each year, while chest CTs specifically to detect coronary artery calcium are conducted only about 60,000 times per year. The Stanford team developed an AI algorithm that searches existing chest CTs in the patient record to identify calcium deposits and present this information to primary care physicians. A multi-center study of the program showed that across the patients identified by Stanford’s algorithm, the following results were achieved compared with usual care:

• Statin therapy: 51.2% received a statin prescription versus 6.9% with usual care (p<0.001)
• Shared decision making: 77.9% had a statin discussion or prescription compared with 12.0% with usual care (p<0.001)
• LDL cholesterol reduction: 97.2 mg/dL versus 115.3 mg/dL with usual care (p=0.005)

“The Stanford Medicine program demonstrates what a powerful resource AI can be for clinicians as they care for patients,” said Dorn. “Our hope is that others will be inspired to design data science solutions that support clinicians to make a meaningful impact on health outcomes.”

Now in its seventh year, the Hearst Health Prize is a $100,000 award that recognizes data science projects and programs demonstrating improved health outcomes for US populations. The competition is offered in partnership with the UCLA Center for SMART Health and attracts a diverse set of applications from across the nation, which are evaluated by UCLA reviewers and a distinguished panel of judges. In 2023, Stanford’s program scored the highest among all applicants across the evaluation criteria:

• Health impact or outcome
• Data science approach
• Operational and financial sustainability
• Scalability and generalizability
• Mitigation of bias
• Significance of the problem and solution

“Deploying AI to identify patient attributes across a vast dataset can help alleviate the workload of clinicians while empowering them to deliver timely care,” said Bui.

Naeim said, “Gaining clinically actionable insights from existing electronic health record data makes our healthcare system better for patients and clinicians alike.”

To submit an entry to the 2024 Hearst Health Prize or learn more, visit: https://go.hearsthealth.hearst.com/Hearst-Health-Prize-23prwin

About the Hearst Health Prize

The purpose of the Hearst Health Prize is to proliferate best practices in data science in healthcare more rapidly, and to showcase successful work. The competition evaluates data science projects or programs that have been implemented and have demonstrated improved health outcomes. It is not a grant program. The winner of the Hearst Health Prize receives $100,000. In addition, up to two finalists will each receive $25,000. As the official partner of the Hearst Health Prize, the UCLA Center for SMART Health identifies data science programs making a measurable difference in human health.

About the UCLA Center for SMART Health

The UCLA Center for Systematic, Measurable, Actionable, Resilient, and Technology-driven (SMART) Health is a campus-wide collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of healthcare through emergent data and technologies. A joint effort between the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), the Institute for Precision Health (IPH), and the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences that brings together UCLA’s experts to shape how digital and data-driven healthcare technologies will help to manage risk, reliability, resilience, uncertainty, and precision in future biomedical research and clinical care.

About Hearst Health

The mission of Hearst Health is to help guide the most important care moments by delivering vital information into the hands of everyone who touches a person’s health journey. Care guidance from Hearst Health reaches the majority of people in the U.S. The Hearst Health network includes FDB (First Databank), Zynx Health, MCG, Homecare Homebase and MHK. Hearst also holds a minority interest in the precision medicine and oncology analytics company M2GEN. Follow Hearst Health on Twitter @HearstHealth and LinkedIn @Hearst-Health.

Contacts

• David Sampson, UCLA Health, dsampson@mednet.ucla.edu
• Rochelle Cross, Hearst Health, rcross@hearst.com

UCLA Center for SMART Health convenes national experts to address key issues in healthcare data science

LOS ANGELES, May 1, 2023 – Hearst Health, in partnership with the UCLA Center for SMART Health, today announced that the judges for the 2023 Hearst Health Prize will be featured in a panel discussion at UCLA Health Data Day on May 11, 2023. To attend this event, register at: https://it.uclahealth.org/ucla-health-data-day-2023.

The Hearst Health Prize is an annual award that recognizes data science projects and programs demonstrating improved health outcomes for U.S. populations. The competition attracts a diverse set of applications from across the nation, which are evaluated by UCLA reviewers and a distinguished panel of judges. Submissions are scored based on each program’s:

• Health impact or outcome
• Data science approach
• Operational and financial sustainability
• Scalability and generalizability
• Mitigation of bias
• Significance of the problem and solution

The 2023 Hearst Health Prize judges, who will be featured panelists at UCLA Health Data Day, include:

• Ivelyse Andino, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Radical Health: A nationally recognized leader in patient advocacy, Andino is a health equity strategist building community at the intersection of health, equity, and technology. Her work has helped bridge the gap between systemically marginalized communities and the medical system. www.radical-health.com/ivelyse
• Alex Bui, PhD, Co-director of the UCLA Center for SMART Health: Bui is a Professor of Radiological Sciences, Bioengineering, and Bioinformatics and holds the David Geffen Chair in Informatics. His primary research interests include distributed health information systems, including mHealth; methods using observational data sources, including translational applications and evaluation of AI-based methods for healthcare; and data visualization. smarthealth.ucla.edu/people/alex-bui
• Arash Naeim, MD, PhD, Co-director of the UCLA Center for SMART Health: Naeim is a clinical oncologist and informaticist, and among his leadership roles, he is a professor at UCLA’s engineering and medical schools. His research interests included outcomes research, cost-effectiveness analysis, modeling of health and frailty, and clinical trial design. smarthealth.ucla.edu/people/arash-naeim
• Jennifer K. Wagner, JD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Law, Policy, and Engineering at Penn State: Wagner is a multidisciplinary expert whose research has been focused on the international human right to science, including human-centered design and matters of nondiscrimination, privacy, and equity with genomics and digital health technologies. pennstatelaw.psu.edu/faculty/wagner

The panel will be moderated by Gregory Dorn, MD, MPH, president of Hearst Health. “Every year, we are encouraged by the advancements made in data science in healthcare, and we are honored for these premier experts to serve as judges for the Hearst Health Prize.”

“As advanced technologies emerge and new use cases are explored, it is more important than ever that we understand the health impact these technologies can have,” said Bui. Naeim added, “We are excited about the great lineup of speakers and panelists at our annual symposium and look forward to hearing more about the achievements and progress in this field.”

“Interdisciplinary collaborations are important as data science is adopted,” said Andino. “Thoughtfulness and great intentionality must be applied to new technologies to ensure consumers of all backgrounds have access to the best healthcare experience and outcomes.”

“As we consider the scale and impact of data science in healthcare, we are circumspect of the ethical considerations for individuals and groups,” said Wagner. “Sharing learnings and best practices in a national forum is important for advancing the science while staying true to the mission of healthcare.”

The Hearst Health Prize is offered in partnership with the UCLA Center for SMART Health, and identifies and rewards data science programs making a measurable difference in human health; it is not a grant program. The winner of the 2023 Hearst Health Prize will be announced at UCLA Health Data Day and will be awarded $100,000. To attend UCLA Health Data Day, register at: https://it.uclahealth.org/ucla-health-data-day-2023

For more information about the Hearst Health Prize, visit: https://go.hearsthealth.hearst.com/Hearst-Health-Prize-23jdg.

About UCLA Health Data Day

The UCLA Center for SMART Health and UCLA Health Office for Health Informatics and Analytics are pleased to collaborate in offering an annual symposium showcasing compelling advancements and applications of data science in clinical care. The conference is open to professionals and researchers in healthcare data science and clinical informatics. To view the agenda and register for this free event, visit: https://smarthealth.ucla.edu/ucla-health-data-day-2023

About Hearst Health

The mission of Hearst Health is to help guide the most important care moments by delivering vital information into the hands of everyone who touches a person’s health journey. Care guidance from Hearst Health reaches the majority of people in the U.S. The Hearst Health network includes FDB (First Databank), Zynx Health, MCG, Homecare Homebase and MHK. Hearst also holds a minority interest in the precision medicine and oncology analytics company M2GEN. Follow Hearst Health on Twitter @HearstHealth and LinkedIn @Hearst-Health.

About the UCLA Center for SMART Health

The UCLA Center for Systematic, Measurable, Actionable, Resilient, and Technology-driven (SMART) Health is a campus-wide collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of healthcare through emergent data and technologies. A joint effort between the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), the Institute for Precision Health (IPH), and the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences that brings together UCLA’s experts to shape how digital and data-driven healthcare technologies will help to manage risk, reliability, resilience, uncertainty, and precision in future biomedical research and clinical care.

Contacts

• Rochelle Cross, Hearst Health, rcross@hearst.com
• David Sampson, UCLA Health, dsampson@mednet.ucla.edu

LOS ANGELES and SAN FRANCISCO, November 2, 2022 – The UCLA Center for SMART Health, an interdisciplinary collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of healthcare through emergent data and technologies, and Hearst Health, a division of Hearst and leader in care guidance, yesterday announced that Constant Therapy Health is the winner of the 2022 Hearst Health Prize. The program was recognized for its digital personalized speech, language and cognitive therapy solutions which have improved health outcomes for patients recovering from neurological disorders.

The $100,000 award for excellence in data science in healthcare was announced by Gregory Dorn, MD, MPH, president of Hearst Health; Arash Naeim, MD, PhD, co-director of UCLA Center for SMART Health; and Alex Bui, PhD, co-director of the Center for SMART Health, at the Center’s annual symposium in Los Angeles.

Veera Anantha, PhD, CEO and Co-founder of Constant Therapy Health commented: “The entire Constant Therapy team is honored to be named this year’s Hearst Health Prize winner. This award is recognition of the many milestones we’ve achieved this year, including delivering over 200 million therapy exercises to patients and launching an enterprise offering of our brain rehabilitation that will enable greater access for clinicians and patients to Constant Therapy.”

Constant Therapy Health’s machine learning platform continuously identifies optimal therapy exercises for patients using their past performance metrics, population performance data for similar patient types, their clinician inputs, and self-submitted preferences and profile information. Using the Constant Therapy platform at home, stroke patients have seen significant improvements on standardized cognitive and language skills assessments compared with patients receiving standard of care workbooks. Patients with traumatic brain injury or stroke showed significant improvement on cognitive and language skills when given access to Constant Therapy at home in addition to clinic therapy. [WATCH VIDEO]

“The Constant Therapy Health program serves as a groundbreaking example of how advanced care algorithms help patients regain function and recover from brain injury,” said Dorn. “We are pleased to recognize their great work as the 2022 winner of the Hearst Health Prize.”

Hearst Health Prize applications were evaluated by experts at the UCLA Center for SMART Health and by a distinguished panel of judges. Applicants were scored based on their data science program’s health impact or outcome; data science approach; operational and financial sustainability; scalability and generalizability; mitigation of bias; and significance of the problem and solution. Constant Therapy Health scored the highest across these criteria.

“Not only does this solution support patients recovering from traumatic brain injuries and other neurological disorders, it helps the healthcare system overall by addressing a need where clinical resources can be scarce,” said Naeim.

“The program’s machine learning solution demonstrates the positive impact digital therapeutics can have on patients with limited access to in-person treatment, providing them a meaningful intervention they can use at home,” added Bui.

In addition to the $100,000 award for the winner, $25,000 awards were given to each of the two finalists:

• Geisinger was awarded for its data science solution that identifies at-risk individuals across the health system’s largely rural population and provides them with appropriate clinical services. [WATCH VIDEO]
• Prenosis was awarded for its Immunix™ Platform and Sepsis ImmunoScore™, an artificial intelligence- and machine learning-based Software-as-a-Medical-Device that identifies hospital patients at risk for having or developing sepsis. [WATCH VIDEO]

To submit an entry to the 2023 Hearst Health Prize or learn more about the competition, visit https://go.hearsthealth.hearst.com/Hearst-Health-Prize-22prwin.

About the Hearst Health Prize

The purpose of the Hearst Health Prize is to proliferate best practices in data science in healthcare more rapidly, and to showcase successful work. The competition evaluates data science projects or programs that have been implemented and have demonstrated improved health outcomes. It is not a grant program. The winner of the Hearst Health Prize receives $100,000. In addition, up to two finalists will each receive $25,000. As the official partner of the Hearst Health Prize, the UCLA Center for SMART Health identifies data science programs making a measurable difference in human health.

About the UCLA Center for SMART Health

The UCLA Center for Systematic, Measurable, Actionable, Resilient, and Technology-driven (SMART) Health is a campus-wide collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of healthcare through emergent data and technologies. A joint effort between the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), the Institute for Precision Health (IPH), and the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences that brings together UCLA’s experts to shape how digital and data-driven healthcare technologies will help to manage risk, reliability, resilience, uncertainty, and precision in future biomedical research and clinical care.

About Hearst Health

The mission of Hearst Health is to help guide the most important care moments by delivering vital information into the hands of everyone who touches a person’s health journey. Care guidance from Hearst Health reaches the majority of people in the U.S. The Hearst Health network includes FDB (First Databank), Zynx Health, MCG, Homecare Homebase and MHK. Hearst also holds a minority interest in the precision medicine and oncology analytics company M2GEN. Follow Hearst Health on Twitter @HearstHealth and LinkedIn @Hearst-Health.

Contacts

• David Sampson, UCLA Health, dsampson@mednet.ucla.edu
• Rochelle Cross, Hearst Health, rcross@hearst.com

LOS ANGELES and SAN FRANCISCO, October 27, 2022 – The UCLA Center for SMART Health, an interdisciplinary collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of healthcare through emergent data and technologies, and Hearst Health, a division of Hearst and leader in care guidance, today announced the three finalists for the 2022 Hearst Health Prize, a $100,000 award given in recognition of excellence in data science for managing or improving health in the U.S.

The 2022 Hearst Health Prize finalists, in alphabetical order, are:

• Constant Therapy Health, for its personalized speech, language and cognitive therapy for patients with neurological disorders to receive evidence-based therapy at home. Its machine learning platform continuously identifies the best therapy exercises that each patient should do next by using the patient’s past performance metrics, population performance data for other patients like them, their clinician’s inputs, and the patient’s preferences and profile. Using the Constant Therapy platform at home, stroke patients achieved significant improvements on standardized cognitive and language skills compared with patients receiving standard of care workbooks. Patients with traumatic brain injury or stroke given access to Constant Therapy at home in addition to clinic therapy showed significant improvement on cognitive and language skills.
• Geisinger, for its health data science solution that identifies at-risk individuals across the health system’s largely rural population and provides them with appropriate clinical services. Its ConnectedCare365 predictive model supports individuals with chronic diseases, helping to link them with care management resources to prevent unnecessary hospital and emergency room visits. Similar models identify patients at high risk of developing colorectal cancer to promote follow-up screening, and leverage natural language processing of radiology reports to identify cases of potentially deadly abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) that might otherwise be missed.
• Prenosis, for its Immunix™ Platform and Sepsis ImmunoScore™, an artificial intelligence and machine learning based Software-as-a-Medical-Device that identifies hospital patients at risk for having or developing sepsis. The Prenosis solution includes a proprietary biobank and dataset (NOSIS), and incorporates 25 parameters from the patient’s hospital electronic health record (EHR). Peer-reviewed studies have demonstrated the superior prognostic accuracy of NOSIS protein data with EHRs over that of a model trained only in EHR data; and that ImmunoScore-based risk strata were significantly associated with hospital length of stay, 30-day mortality, and 30-day inpatient readmission.

“The submissions to the 2022 competition represent an outstanding national sample of data science programs in healthcare, and these three finalists are truly an elite cohort,” said Gregory Dorn, MD, MPH, Hearst Health president. “The results they have achieved are impressive and inspiring.”

“Constant Therapy is honored to be among this elite group of organizations recognized for creating significant healthcare impact with technology and data science. With more than 200 million exercises delivered to date, we are proud of the successful execution of our mission to increase access to effective speech and cognitive therapy to patients recovering from stroke and TBI, or living with aphasia, dementia, and other neurological conditions. By making brain rehabilitation available at home, we strive to enable patients to lead more fulfilling lives,” said Veera Anantha, CEO and Co-founder of Constant Therapy Health.

“We are honored to be among the 2022 Hearst Health Prize finalists,” said David Vawdrey, PhD, Chief Data & Informatics Officer at Geisinger. “We believe that the effective application of data science can improve the health of populations, reduce healthcare costs, and help eliminate inequality and injustice in our healthcare system.”

“With all of the incredible innovation happening in healthcare data science, we’re grateful that our work has been recognized by the judges for our precision medicine platform and sepsis solution,” said Bobby Reddy, Jr., Prenosis CEO. “We created our dataset because we wanted to tailor treatment to everyone’s unique biology. We are building the first maps to truly understand each individual’s biology and to use this understanding to suggest the optimal clinical pathways that most increase chances of improved outcomes.”

The winner will be announced on November 1 at an award ceremony during the UCLA Center for SMART Health 2022 Annual Symposium. The winner will be awarded $100,000 and the other two finalists will each be awarded $25,000. To register for the symposium or learn more about the Hearst Health Prize, please visit https://go.hearsthealth.hearst.com/Hearst-Health-Prize-22prfin

About the UCLA Center for SMART Health

The UCLA Center for Systematic, Measurable, Actionable, Resilient, and Technology-driven (SMART) Health is a campus-wide collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of healthcare through emergent data and technologies. A joint effort between the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), the Institute for Precision Health (IPH), and the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences that brings together UCLA’s experts to shape how digital and data-driven healthcare technologies will help to manage risk, reliability, resilience, uncertainty, and precision in future biomedical research and clinical care.

About Hearst Health

The mission of Hearst Health is to help guide the most important care moments by delivering vital information into the hands of everyone who touches a person’s health journey. Care guidance from Hearst Health reaches the majority of people in the U.S. The Hearst Health network includes FDB (First Databank), Zynx Health, MCG, Homecare Homebase and MHK. Hearst also holds a minority interest in the precision medicine and oncology analytics company M2GEN. Follow Hearst Health on Twitter @HearstHealth and LinkedIn @Hearst-Health.

Contacts

• David Sampson, UCLA Health, dsampson@mednet.ucla.edu
• Rochelle Cross, Hearst Health, rcross@hearst.com

LOS ANGELES and SAN FRANCISCO, May 17, 2022. The UCLA Center for SMART Health, an interdisciplinary collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of healthcare through emergent data and technologies, and Hearst Health, a division of Hearst and leader in care guidance, today announced the call for submissions is open for the 2022 Hearst Health Prize, a $100,000 award given in recognition of excellence in data science for managing or improving health in the U.S. In addition, up to two finalists will each receive $25,000.

“We look forward to recognizing and rewarding impactful data science work in healthcare, as we embark on our sixth year of the Hearst Health Prize,” said Gregory Dorn, MD, MPH, Hearst Health president. “We are committed to supporting groundbreaking solutions that benefit patients.”

The Hearst Health Prize evaluates implemented data science projects that demonstrate improved health outcomes; it is not a grant program. The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2022. Up to three finalists will be named by October 3, 2022, and the winner will be announced on November 1, 2022, at an award ceremony in Los Angeles. The winner will be awarded $100,000 and up to two finalists will each be awarded $25,000. For full details, including eligibility, submission criteria, application and rules, please visit www.smarthealth.ucla.edu/hearst-health-prize.

“With the Hearst Health Prize we are giving a national stage to the artificial intelligence and other data science solutions moving the needle on human health,” said Arash Naeim, MD, PhD, Co-director of UCLA Center for SMART Health.

Alex Bui, PhD, another Co-director of the Center for SMART Health, added, “We anticipate seeing entries from variety of data science approaches applied to some of healthcare’s most pressing needs, and are excited to recognize great work in the field.”

Applications will be evaluated by UCLA reviewers and a distinguished panel of judges. Each submission will be scored based on the data science program’s:

• Health impact or outcome
• Data science approach
• Operational and financial sustainability
• Scalability and generalizability
• Mitigation of bias
• Significance of the problem and solution

Key Dates for the 2022 Hearst Health Prize:

• June 30, 2022: Closing date for submissions at 11:59 PM Eastern Time/8:59 PM Pacific Time
• October 3, 2022: Finalists announced
• November 1, 2022: Winner of the $100,000 Hearst Health Prize will be announced at an award ceremony in Los Angeles

About the UCLA Center for SMART Health

The UCLA Center for Systematic, Measurable, Actionable, Resilient, and Technology-driven (SMART) Health is a campus-wide collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of healthcare through emergent data and technologies. A joint effort between the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), the Institute for Precision Health (IPH), and the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences that brings together UCLA’s experts to shape how digital and data-driven healthcare technologies will help to manage risk, reliability, resilience, uncertainty, and precision in future biomedical research and clinical care.

About Hearst Health

The mission of Hearst Health is to help guide the most important care moments by delivering vital information into the hands of everyone who touches a person’s health journey. Care guidance from Hearst Health reaches the majority of people in the U.S. The Hearst Health network includes FDB (First Databank), Zynx Health, MCG, Homecare Homebase and MHK. Hearst also holds a minority interest in the precision medicine and oncology analytics company M2GEN. Follow Hearst Health on Twitter @HearstHealth and LinkedIn @Hearst-Health.

Contacts

• David Sampson, UCLA Health, dsampson@mednet.ucla.edu
• Rochelle Cross, Hearst Health, rcross@hearst.com

LOS ANGELES and SAN FRANCISCO, January 20, 2022 – The UCLA Center for SMART Health, an interdisciplinary collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of healthcare through emergent data and technologies, and Hearst Health, a division of Hearst and leader in care guidance, today announced their partnership to offer the Hearst Health Prize.

Launched in 2015, the prestigious Hearst Health Prize identifies and promotes programs and interventions that demonstrate improvements in health. For the first five years, the Hearst Health Prize focused on effective population health programs, and each year awarded $100,000 to the winner. Beginning in 2022, the Hearst Health Prize will change its focus from population health to data science initiatives that demonstrate a positive impact on health outcomes. The partnership establishes a relationship for Hearst Health to provide funding for the program and award, offered through the UCLA Center for SMART Health. The financial details of the partnership were not disclosed, however Hearst Health’s funding for the program is projected to exceed $1 million over the term.

“Our award provides a national platform to showcase how data science is making a difference in the lives of patients,” said Gregory Dorn, MD, MPH, Hearst Health president. “The engineering and healthcare expertise that Alex and Arash have aligned at the UCLA Center for SMART Health makes them ideal partners for this next generation of the Hearst Health Prize in data sciences.”

Established in 2016, the UCLA Center for SMART Health is dedicated to the research, evaluation, and application of digital health technologies and data-driven analyses that advance human health by predicting and reducing risk, improving decision-making, and optimizing the spectrum of clinical care activities. “The Center for SMART Health has created a collaborative environment that stimulates advanced, tailored precision medicine for patients. Collaborations among faculty and partners, such as Hearst Health, will advance this mission,” said Steve Dubinett, MD, interim Dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) at UCLA.

“With the increasing activity in healthcare related to artificial intelligence and other data science solutions, everyone working in healthcare should understand what programs and approaches result in better health for patients,” said Arash Naeim, MD, PhD, co-director of UCLA Center for SMART Health.

“The application of AI and data science to healthcare has reached a state of maturity where it is important to investigate the approaches that are most impactful in generating health outcomes,” said Alex Bui, PhD, another co-director of the Center for SMART Health. “Our collaboration on the Hearst Health Prize will help disseminate best practices for the benefit of everyone.”

The call for submissions for the Hearst Health Prize will open in the coming weeks. For more information on submitting an entry, visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HearstHealthPrizeSignUp2022.

About the UCLA Center for SMART Health

The UCLA Center for Systematic, Measurable, Actionable, Resilient, and Technology-driven (SMART) Health is a campus-wide collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of healthcare through emergent data and technologies. A joint effort between the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), the Institute for Precision Health (IPH), and the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences that brings together UCLA’s experts to shape how digital and data-driven healthcare technologies will help to manage risk, reliability, resilience, uncertainty, and precision in future biomedical research and clinical care.

About Hearst Health

The mission of Hearst Health is to help guide the most important care moments by delivering vital information into the hands of everyone who touches a person’s health journey. Care guidance from Hearst Health reaches the majority of people in the U.S. The Hearst Health network includes FDB (First Databank), Zynx Health, MCG, Homecare Homebase and MHK (formerly MedHOK). Hearst also holds a minority interest in the precision medicine and oncology analytics company M2Gen. Follow Hearst Health on Twitter @HearstHealth and LinkedIn @Hearst-Health.

Contacts

David Sampson, UCLA Health, dsampson@mednet.ucla.edu

Rochelle Cross, Hearst Health, rcross@hearst.com, 310-954-5675

Nelson Freimer, director of the UCLA Depression Grand Challenge (DGC), appeared on KTVU San Francisco to discuss the DGC’s pilot research project in collaboration with Apple. The study – which seeks to develop more objective measures for detecting depression and anxiety – is designed so that all aspects of participation can be accomplished remotely. Nelson commented that physical distancing and other changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the importance of incorporating technologies like those to be tested in this study into clinical research and treatment.

In response to the enormous and immediate need for support during COVID-19, UCLA partnered with Beyoncé’s BeyGOOD initiative and Jack Dorsey’s Start Small fund to create an online COVID-19 Care Package. For more information about the COVID-19 Care Package, please visit the STAND Together during COVID-19 website.

Researchers from the Depression Grand Challenge collaborate with Apple

While the capability to diagnose cancer and heart problems has advanced by giant steps in recent years, methods to detect depression have stubbornly stayed the same for more than a century: Observe patients, and ask them how they are doing.

UCLA has launched a major new study, sponsored by and in collaboration with Apple, designed to help revolutionize detection and treatment of depression.

The three-year study, which begins this week, was co-designed by researchers at UCLA and Apple to obtain objective measures of factors such as sleep, physical activity, heart rate and daily routines to illuminate the relationship between these factors and symptoms of depression and anxiety.

The research will utilize Apple technology including iPhone, Apple Watch and a Beddit sleep-monitoring device. Making the connection between quantifiable data and symptoms of anxiety and depression could enable health care providers to note warning signs and prevent the onset of depressive episodes, track the effectiveness of treatment and identify causes of depression.

“As a neuroscientist by training with expertise in sleep, I am incredibly excited about this collaboration and am hopeful that it will lead to significant strides in mental health research,” said UCLA Chancellor Gene Block.

Dr. Nelson Freimer, distinguished professor of psychiatry and director of the UCLA Depression Grand Challenge, is principal investigator on the study.

“This collaboration, which harnesses UCLA’s deep research expertise and Apple’s innovative technology, has the potential to transform behavioral health research and clinical care,” Freimer said. “Current approaches to treating depression rely almost entirely on the subjective recollections of depression sufferers. This is an important step for obtaining objective and precise measurements that guide both diagnosis and treatment.”

The study is the latest milestone for the Depression Grand Challenge, an ambitious UCLA initiative involving researchers from across disciplines to identify genetic and environmental factors that contribute to depression, understand the biological changes that depression causes in the brain and body, accelerate progress in diagnosis and treatment and end the stigma associated with the disorder. UCLA chose to take on this challenge because depression afflicts more than 300 million people worldwide, resulting in nearly 1 million suicides a year.

The pilot phase of the study, involving 150 participants recruited from among UCLA Health patients, begins this week. The main phases, to take place from 2021 through 2023, will involve some 3,000 participants, drawn both from UCLA Health patients and the UCLA student body.

Participants will need to download a research app on their personal iPhones. They will receive an Apple Watch and Beddit sleep monitor, which they will use for the duration of the study. Participants will share relevant information through periodic clinical interviews and questionnaires, as well as from data obtained from the phone, watch and sleep monitor.

Freimer emphasizes that ensuring the privacy and security of study participants’ data is a high priority for both UCLA and Apple. UCLA will process and maintain study data in a secure environment, with access limited to members of the UCLA research team. UCLA and Apple will analyze the data only after they are coded and stripped of names and other contact information.

The study comes as the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted lives and spurred a focus on anxiety and depression, and when physical distancing requirements have made scientific research challenging.

“UCLA and Apple have designed this study so that all aspects of participation can be accomplished remotely,” Freimer said. “The pandemic has heightened anxiety and depression globally, and has increased awareness of the importance of behavioral health to overall wellbeing. At the same time, physical distancing requirements have limited in-person mental health assessment and treatment, leading to expanded use and acceptance of telehealth. These changes highlight the importance of incorporating technologies like those to be tested in this study into clinical research and eventually into practice.”

The UCLA Depression Grand Challenge has already made significant advances in understanding and treating depression. Professor Jonathan Flint, who led a study proving for the first time the relationship between specific genetic factors and a tendency toward depression, has embarked on ambitious genetic research of tens of thousands of depression sufferers to understand the origins of the disease at the molecular level. In 2017, UCLA became the first university to offer voluntary depression and anxiety screening and immediate treatment to students through the STAND program developed by Professor Michelle Craske. This year, the Depression Grand Challenge created a COVID-19 Care Package and to offered it for free to members of the public to ease stress and anxiety associated with the pandemic.

These efforts, including the study that starts this week, form a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary approach to understanding depression, developing treatments and wiping away the stigma that has upended lives.

“The analyses made possible by the scale, length and design of this study will provide the most extensive evidence available to date regarding the possible uses of digital tools for assessing and tracking behavioral health,” Freimer said. “We envision a future in which these tools will become indispensable for depression sufferers and those providing them care.