At the scene of an emergency, there is a flurry of decisions to be made, according to UTSA associate professor and researcher Amina Qutub.
“Where to transport them? How quick can they transport them? What hospital is equipped to handle that patient and cover that patient's care right now? How should you follow up with a patient? All of those now are manual decisions,” Qutub explained.
But what if artificial intelligence could do all that in an instant? Qutub is a lead researcher on a team developing an AI tool that they believe will do just that. The tool is called iRemedyAct.
“The goal of this project is really to, within 16 months, develop a tool that can help to save lives by identifying ways to speed up care for those people who have suffered a trauma and decide on the best care in emergency cases,” Qutub said.
Qutub is part of the UTSA MATRIX AI Consortium for Human Well-Being, and it’s collaborating with researchers from UT Health San Antonio and UT Tyler to develop and deploy AI tools to improve emergency decision making among first responders here in the U.S, but also in the battlefield. The project received a million dollars for this research from the Trauma Research and Combat Casualty Care Collaborative of The University of Texas System.
Qutub has been working with artificial intelligence since she was in graduate school, inspired by her father, who was a pioneer in the field. She believes AI has endless potential related to human well-being.
In this episode of Petrie Dish, Qutub talks with Bonnie Petrie about AI’s history and the many ways it can potentially save and improve countless lives.
