Behind The Scenes: Advancing Alzheimer’s Care Through Artificial Intelligence - Dr. Jessica Cuppage
Bold, transformative research and treatments are often front-page news in the world of Alzheimer’s advancements.
At Baycrest, Dr. Jessica Cuppage, Chief Medical Innovation Officer and Care of the Elderly Physician, is helping shape the future of dementia care. She integrates technologies to enhance patient-centred care and co-leads the Hospital’s digital health strategy.
Her work may not always make headlines, yet it is laying the foundation for the next generation of care. One of her key projects involves harnessing information that can later be used for predictive algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI), to better prepare for and predict clinical outcomes. It starts with health information systems implementation, where she introduces and standardizes documentation tools used in clinical care. By ensuring health data is structured, precise and usable, Baycrest is preparing for a future where AI could help predict outcomes, personalize interventions and improve quality of life for people living with dementia.
“The importance of that [work] is to capture information in a way that it can later be used for predictive algorithms or AI. There are a lot of potential applications for predictive analytics or AI in dementia care, but to do that, we need data we can use, that will be discrete and useable in those types of algorithms,” says Dr. Cuppage.
Discrete data represents exact figures you can count, easily identify, manage and analyze. With its countable nature, it simplifies analysis and provides clear categories for AI to learn from, leading to more accurate and reliable predictions.Discrete data provides the structure needed to monitor metrics and uncover patterns, enhancing AI’s ability to generate accurate clinical predictions for different populations.
“A lot of what I'm doing is helping design documentation tools and digital infrastructure to capture data in a very specific way, for use with AI. AI is coming to all sectors, including healthcare, and where exactly it will be the most useful is still yet to be determined, but there are a ton of potential applications within dementia care, to actively predict outcomes. We’re setting the groundwork to make that possible.”