Latest news with #Biddinger
Axios
17-07-2025
- Health
- Axios
Brigham, IBM's AI tool could help warn Boston's hottest neighborhoods of heat waves
While a heat wave smothers Boston, researchers are developing a tool to warn people of heat emergencies and the risks they face sooner. Why it matters: Some Boston neighborhoods — known as "urban heat islands" — are scorching by the time the sensor at Logan Airport notifies forecasters and city leaders of a heat emergency. Driving the news: A team at Brigham and Women's Hospital and IBM is building an AI-driven tool that would identify high temperatures in urban heat islands sooner and offer suggestions on how to cool down. That could mean going to a cooling center or an air-conditioned library building nearby, says Paul Biddinger, chief preparedness and continuity officer at Mass General Brigham, who is leading the project. The team envisions the tool warning community health center patients of heat emergencies, especially those who may be at high risk, without compromising sensitive health data. What they're saying: "People don't know when they're at higher risk often," Biddinger tells Axios. Take water pills for heart failure? Got chronic lung or kidney conditions? You're at higher risk, Biddinger wrote Tuesday. Take SSRIs for depression? You, too. Zoom out: The coastal Northeast is heating faster than most regions in North America, per UMass research. But many homes lack updated infrastructure or were designed to trap heat to keep residents warm in the winter. More people will become vulnerable to extreme heat risks as climate change worsens, doctors and researchers say. Threat level: The state estimated last year that at least 30 people have died from extreme heat here in the past decade, and that doesn't take into account the thousands who have been hospitalized since 2000. Pockets of Dorchester, South Boston, Chinatown and Roxbury see higher temperatures than neighboring areas. Yes, but: The AI tool is still in development, Biddinger says. The team plans to launch a prototype in multiple languages before next summer and a final version by 2027. Reality check: In the meantime, Bostonians will have to take the forecast with a grain of salt (or round up the temperature), depending on where they live.
Scientific American
02-07-2025
- Health
- Scientific American
To Save Patients from Extreme Heat, a Hospital Is Turning to AI
CLIMATEWIRE | When extreme heat hits the Boston area, emergency departments are packed with people who are dehydrated, experiencing kidney or heart problems, or are having heat cramps. Now a health care system that serves 2.5 million patients across Massachusetts is turning to artificial intelligence for help. 'The stress of the heat exacerbates those conditions, and we'll see a 10 percent jump of people in the emergency department not just for heat illness, but also weakness or syncope or other conditions due to the heat,' said Paul Biddinger, chief preparedness and continuity officer at Mass General Brigham, the nonprofit academic health system that is working on a new alert system to warn people about the dangers of heat waves. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. In February, MGB was one of five applicants to join a Sustainability Accelerator run by IBM. The program seeks to help communities facing environmental and economic stress through technology. It had received more than 100 proposals for how to use AI to advance climate sustainability and resilience. The idea is simple: Use AI to comb through electronic health records to find patients who have health conditions or take medications that might make them particularly vulnerable to heat. The AI program would warn them when a heat wave is coming and tell patients how to protect themselves so they don't end up in an emergency room. The tool would include security features to protect patient health information. Ideally, the combination of personalized information, real-time heat data, and "actionable messages" will help empower patients to protect themselves. 'We think patients will pay more attention if it is their doctor, their hospital saying, 'Hey, you're at risk and here's what to do,' than if they just see on the news that it will be hot tomorrow,' Biddinger said. Heat kills an estimated 2,300 people every year in the United States, more than any other type of extreme weather event, and results in the hospitalization of thousands of others. Those numbers are expected to increase as climate change turbocharges temperatures, with one estimate calculating that emergency rooms could be inundated with an additional 235,000 visitors each summer. The same report, by the Center for American Progress, estimated that health care costs related to extreme heat would amount to $1 billion annually. Mass General Brigham offers training for doctors and nurses about how climate change could affect patients. Some particularly vulnerable patients with complex or overlapping medical conditions are assigned case workers to discuss those risks. 'Just as we want our patients to control their blood sugar if they have diabetes or not be exposed to poor air quality if they have a respiratory disease, trying to help them protect themselves from heat by communicating when they are at high risk is a health care responsibility, and we are trying to do better,' Biddinger said. But proactively warning patients is a tall order for humans to do on their own. Patients with complicated medical conditions are assigned care managers, who follow patients more closely and will contact them before a heat wave strikes to 'support their health.' But there's not enough staff to reach everyone who has a heart or kidney condition, or those whose homes might not have air conditioning. The AI program is still being developed, but Biddinger said he envisions it having a chatbot function, so patients can ask questions when they receive an alert. 'Our primary care doctors are so overwhelmed these days, and we don't want them to be stuck on hold waiting for their doctor when we can use AI to help them identify cooling centers or public places with air conditioning where they can go to stay cool,' he said. The AI alert system is meant to be a pilot program so the technology can be developed with IBM over the next two years. If it works, it could be shared with other hospitals. 'This is not being developed as a profits-driven product. It's meant to be a service to the community that health centers across the country could use to support their patients, too,' Biddinger said.
