Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio are exploring how artificial intelligence can help.
UTSA’s MATRIX AI Consortium, the school’s hub for artificial intelligence research, received $1 million in April from the University of Texas system to develop and deploy AI tools for medical providers to improve trauma care decisions in real time.
The project, called iRemedyACT, aims to build a database of details regarding time for treatment of trauma patients across the state and develop AI tools focused on trauma care for providers, said Amina Qutub, an associate professor of biomedical and chemical engineering at UTSA and one of the project’s eight primary investigators.
They want “to be able to identify … the points of delay and to mitigate those delays so that people within the state of Texas have the fastest and most effective trauma care that could be,” she said Friday.
The researchers envision a sort of co-pilot or assistant to help providers by considering a patient’s injuries in combination with nonmedical factors such as location, weather and traffic — and informed by historical data — to make recommendations for optimal care.
The system could help first responders identify the quickest routes to the hospital or emergency medical facility best suited to handle a given patient’s injuries. And the technology would continue helping caregivers after the patient gets there.
“Right now, there is not an AI helper. There is nobody who’s saying to that EMT (emergency medical technician) or to the person who is on call, ‘This is the predicted best decision in that case,’ ” Qutub said. “With iRemedyACT, there will be. … We’re starting to develop a new database, and then identify what would have been the best decisions if there wasn’t the best decision taken.”
UTSA’s team is collaborating with researchers at UT Health San Antonio and UT Tyler on the project, which is scheduled to run for 16 months, concluding in July 2025. The group is hiring AI engineers to help with coding as they develop the database and tools.
The tools, Qutub said, won’t take people out of the loop. Instead, the AI will help caregivers by providing knowledge and a prediction with its recommended course of action.
“It’s still the decision of the expert, the clinician or the EMT to decide what is the best route, and we learn from that continually,” she said.
The team’s first milestone is to develop within six months a dashboard to visualize data on trauma care from across the nation as a proof of principal.
They believe AI-informed decision-making will eventually improve survival rates of trauma patients, reduce long-term effects of trauma and make Texas’ trauma care system more efficient.
“Through the introduction of new AI methods and integrated databases to the field of trauma, iRemedyACT will accelerate these types of breakthrough translational applications that will save lives and improve quality of life for trauma survivors,” Qutub said in a statement.
The project’s other primary investigators include Dr. Brian Eastridge of UT Health San Antonio, Dr. Alan Cook of UT Tyler and UTSA professors Mark Goldberg, Dhireesha Kudithipudi, Joe Houpt and Chris Rathbone.
“We believe we’re one of the first, if not the first, to have this system up,” Qutub said. “We imagine that will be an example that others across the nation and internationally use.”