Research underway at Washington State University will help healthcare professionals understand how artificial intelligence can assist with blood sugar tracking and follow-up care for patients with diabetes. This effort is funded by the National Institutes of Health’s AIM-AHEAD program, which helps communities improve health outcomes through the development and application of artificial intelligence and machine learning models.
“All Washingtonians deserve access to the best tools we have, but our rural clinics are not receiving the investment they need to harness the full potential of artificial intelligence,” said Anna Zamora Kapur, principal investigator on the project and an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and School of Medical Education and Clinical Sciences. “It’s important to level the playing field, and these projects show that we can improve the health of rural WA with a very small investment.”
For three months, the project will provide approximately 20 type 2 diabetes patients with continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) connected to an AI-powered interface designed by Clinic Chat LLC. CGM tracks a patient’s blood sugar levels, and Clinic Chat provides messages to patients in both English and Spanish about the benefits of healthy eating, exercise, and sleep. Patients will be able to ask questions to an AI chatbot trained solely on existing medical literature on diabetes management.
“Type 2 diabetes is a condition that causes you to see your health care provider from time to time, and what’s really important is your daily habits, like what you eat at home and what your exercise routine is,” Zamora-Kapoor says.
The research project is a joint partnership between WSU, Three Rivers Family Medicine in Brewster, and Clinic Chat LLC, an AI company specializing in machine learning and natural language processing in the medical field. Zamora-Kapoor previously collaborated with Three Rivers Family Medicine on research into rural health care, and when she reached out again for this opportunity, the clinic was eager to continue the partnership.
Once the three-month monitoring period is complete, the team will assess patient usage and overall satisfaction with the CGM and AI chatbot. The research team plans to determine how the technology helped patients manage their blood sugar and whether the intervention had an impact on their daily habits and overall health.
Although this research effort focuses on diabetes management, Zamora-Kapur hopes projects like this will continue to support rural medical clinics in Washington.
“We want to conduct research with the community as true partners, collaborating and participating in every step of the research process,” she said.
