W.Va.’s Health Care Future Laid Out For Legislators

The West Virginia-based experts said the future of healthcare in the state is focused on a culture of innovation that has gone beyond theory.

Legislators who gathered for interim meetings Monday attended a panel discussion of health care research leaders. The West Virginia-based experts said the future of healthcare in the state is focused on a culture of innovation that has gone beyond theory. 

They explained and demonstrated, with examples of real-time advanced medicine, that the West Virginia focus on a culture of health care innovation has the state becoming a world leader. One example was a literal “eye opener.” 

Dr. Ali Rezai, executive chair for the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, explained a preventive innovation in combating Dementia and Alzheimer’s involves a simple eye test patients can do in their eye doctor’s office. Rezai said the test provides a risk profile based on the eye scan. He said that profile can tell patients – with AI published studies – if they have a higher risk for neurodegenerative conditions. 

“Many times you have 20 years of progression of protein accumulation in your brain for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and you’re not aware of it,” Rezai said. “After 20 years of degeneration, then you start having a little twitching your finger or forgetting your way around more than usual, and that’s the 20-year opportunity waiting to detect disease.” 

Rezai said results from that eye test could lead to patients making life modifications like stress reduction, diet, exercise and better sleep hygiene. He said these are simple things can change one’s risk of getting Alzheimer’s.  

The researchers demonstrated, with numerous health care innovations, that replacing diagnosis and treatment with preventive health methods using technology and artificial intelligence improves public health.

Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine Dean Dr. David Gozal explained the future of health has become proactive, using genetic technology to assess internal body functions, looking at the environment, and preventing health problems before they ever start.

“Unique elements that are now becoming the next generation of technology,” Gozal said. “Sensors that today can measure a variety of things in real time and communicate these to computers in real time from the home of the patient to the physician and vice versa. All to assess risk, to identify unique interventions and to actually intervene in real time without necessarily coming to the office or going to the hospital.”

Rezai said new technologies, AI — and in this case a new use of ultrasound  —  are making great strides right now in combating substance use disorder.

“If you’re somebody with an addiction, you show somebody shooting heroin, your craving goes way up and you become very anxious,” Rezai said. “So by increasing the cravings, then we can deliver ultrasound to the craving centers of the brain and shut it down and essentially reboot the brain and reset the brain.”

Asock Aggarwal, chief strategy officer with Intermed Labs said his company is helping West Virginia move to a health care world that is preventive, starting with an expectation of predictability and preventative maintenance. 

“That is what we’re all accustomed to here in West Virginia,” Aggarwal said.  “We all do preventative maintenance on our cars, on our tractors, on our coal mines, on our power plants. We need to do more preventative maintenance on our human bodies. We have  an ability to address a lot of issues related to obesity, rural health, eldercare, addiction and addiction sciences, and all the mental health issues that are related to that. In each of these areas, we have the ability to implement AI and preventative care, to try to address these issues before someone goes on to have a heart attack, before someone goes on to have a psychosis.”

Panelist Dr. Connie Bormans is chief scientific officer with RGEN, a company focused on molecular genetics and DNA analysis. Bormans is also working to replace diagnosis with prevention. Her focus is on Cystic Fibrosis and other inherited disorders. 

“We’re going to couples who want to have children,” Bormans said. “In an attempt to identify couples who are at risk of having children with these diseases and preventing it. By shifting to prevention, there’s a huge cost  savings. As a private lab, one of our goals is to make genetic testing affordable for everyone, regardless of their insurance rate, regardless of if they have health insurance that will cover it. We want to drive down the costs. So anyone that wants to have a test can have a test. And by doing that, we’re going to prevent or remove a lot of these cases, a lot of these conditions from the population.”

All the panelists agreed the future of educating physicians must focus on working as medical teams, working in public-private collaborations and embracing a culture of innovation.  

“We are not individual physicians anymore,” Gozal said. “We are a team of professionals that work together. This is the way that medicine will be practiced in the next several years, as we advance the technology, as we advance the ability to introduce these elements into the practice. I believe that West Virginia, by virtue of the panel that has been assembled here, and all of you, by your interest, will see that by the next generation of physicians that we will train at Marshall University, at West Virginia University and many other medical schools around the nation.”  

Lawmakers Discuss Uses, Concerns Of AI Tech In Legislative Interim

Members of the Joint Standing Committee on the Judiciary discussed the potential uses, and concerns, of artificial intelligence technology with representatives from tech companies including Microsoft, DataRobot and ROC.AI during an interim meeting Monday morning.

Members of the Joint Standing Committee on the Judiciary discussed the potential uses, and concerns, of artificial intelligence technology (AI) with representatives from tech companies including Microsoft, DataRobot and ROC.AI during an interim meeting Monday morning.

“It’s inevitable at some point in time, you will probably need to start thinking about some rulemaking in this space,” Scott Swann, CEO of ROC.AI, said. “And so as I talk to you, really what the messages I want to throw to you is just to give you a little bit better understanding that not all AI is bad, but they’re absolutely things you should probably be concerned about.”

He told the committee that AI programs, like ChatGPT, take in vast amounts of information used for pattern recognition that could be used to analyze documents, bolster school security and recognize license plates on traffic camera footage.

But it also comes with privacy concerns and questions about what’s actually within the programs’ codes.

Swann spoke about the origin of the “AI supply chain” and the need to be wary of “black boxes” from other countries in the technological arms race, like China and Russia. 

He previously worked for the FBI, helping create their Next Generation Identification biometric program for criminal identification.

“The problem is that if you train these kinds of algorithms, then you have the power to put in these embedded rules, so no one is actually going to be able to scan for that,” Swann said.

But another panelist, Ted Kwartler of AI company DataRobot, disagrees. He argues that, in the near-term, much of these new programs can be manageable with the right know-how.

“I don’t think that AI is really a black box,” Kwartler said. “And I know that’s a hot take. But I think that if you are technical, or that it’s explained to you in the way that you can understand it, and it’s contextualized, anyone in this room, by the end of today, I can get them running code to actually build it out.”

Del. Chris Pritt, R-Kanawha, said he is concerned about how to regulate such technology.

“If nobody who’s in charge of enforcing this has the skills, I mean, if it’s so unique, it’s so emerging, that nobody can enforce those guardrails, what’s the solution?” Pritt asked.

Others on the committee, like Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, have experimented with using ChatGPT to write proposals. He asked about the ethics of using AI in the policymaking process moving forward. 

“Is it ethical or okay for state employees to use ChatGPT to write a proposal or write a report?” Hansen asked. “Or is it okay for vendors for the state of West Virginia to do that? Are there states that are regulating that? And if so, where’s the line?”

“I think this body would have to think about what makes sense for them,” Kwartler said.

Earlier this year, the West Virginia Legislature passed House Bill 3214. The law creates a pilot program that will collect data on the health of state roads using AI.

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