Arman Kilic, MD, director of the Schiller Surgical Innovation Center at the Charleston-based Medical University of South Carolina, is working on 25 different projects that utilize artificial intelligence.
"The center's goal is to unite all the various innovation efforts that are happening within the department," said Dr. Kilic in a Jan. 4. blog post from MUSC. "A large focus of that is AI and machine learning. We have probably somewhere in the range of 20 to 25 different AI projects that are ongoing right now in the surgical department through the Innovation Center with a wide variety of domains like surgical oncology, trauma, chest wall surgery, transplantation, cardiac surgery and vascular surgery."
The Schiller Surgical Innovation Center is currently working on a project that uses AI to analyze patient wounds from a photo, as well as one that uses data to model the risk of cardiac surgical procedures.
Dr. Kilic says the health system is exploring AI as it can be "much quicker and more accurate when making data-driven recommendations," and it will be crucial for medical professionals to embrace the technology as its role in healthcare expands.
"We will ultimately be the gatekeepers to this technology and guide when and how it is used," said Dr. Kilic. "I don't think we should shy away from it because in my mind, it's the same thing as a new device or a new pharmaceutical. Innovation is an inherent part of what we do in medicine."