Mount Sinai Health System and RenalytixAI have teamed up to use artificial intelligence to identify patients at risk of kidney disease. The collaborators will use Mount Sinai’s patient data to train AI to spot when someone is at risk of developing kidney disease or requiring unplanned “crash” dialysis.
A significant minority of patients who require dialysis never see a nephrologist before starting on the treatment. The “crash” starts to dialysis experienced by these patients are associated with poorer survival than planned treatments, suggesting tools that enable the early identification of candidates for dialysis will improve health outcomes.
Mount Sinai and RenalytixAI, a subsidiary of EKF Diagnostics, think AI can tackle the problem. The partnership pairs RenalytixAI’s AI capabilities with Mount Sinai’s data assets, which include 3 million patient health records and 43,000 biobank participants.
“Our ability to apply the power of artificial intelligence against such a deep repository of clinical data in combination with prognostic biomarkers has the potential to change the game for all of our patients with diabetes and other populations at risk for kidney disease,” Barbara Murphy, M.D., dean for clinical integration and population health management at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said in a statement.
Mount Sinai and RenalytixAI will spend the coming months working on a system capable of scanning patient data and issuing alerts when kidney disease or crash dialysis looks likely. The partners plan to enlist other healthcare systems in the process with a view to having a version ready to commercialize in the second quarter of next year.
Mount Sinai has a 19% stake in RenalytixAI.