Independence Blue Cross (Independence) has announced a collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on breakthrough developments in deep learning algorithms in health care that was published in February at one of the leading Artificial Intelligence conferences, Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). Independence sponsored and co-developed the technology that increases both the predictive power and interpretability of machine learning models. These ground-breaking developments will improve health through increased efficiencies in care delivery.
Independence has a long history of collaborative research on important health care topics. Previous studies have focused on subjects such as using machine-learning algorithms to spot cases of undiagnosed diabetes; identifying members at risk for hospitalization; and evaluating health interventions that can reduce the number of avoidable emergency department visits.
“The future of health care is dependent upon finding new ways to use technology and information to predict illness and streamline the healthcare system. We’re excited and proud to work with one of the nation’s most well-respected researchers at MIT to help us discover and expand ways to improve health outcomes, lower health care costs, and enrich our members’ health care experience.” said Michael Vennera, senior vice president and chief information officer at Independence.
“I couldn’t be more excited to work with Independence Blue Cross on this research, which represents the new state-of-the-art in machine learning from longitudinal health data,” said Dr. David Sontag, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“By showing how to use clinical domain knowledge within deep learning, we obtain both improved interpretability and higher accuracy. The applications for this work outside the lab helping real people live healthier lives are numerous. It’s not every day that you see collaborations like this between a large insurer and an academic institution.”
In addition to this new publication, Independence recently published joint research with Penn Medicine and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania on COVID-19 infection rates among essential workers, backlogs in mammography during the pandemic, and the use of teledermatology to reduce dermatology wait times.
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