AI for Health is an important initiative of Microsoft to advance people’s and communities’ health around the world. Since January 29, 2020 life has changed because of COVID-19, and now it is time to use AI for Health for helping those in front lines of research on the Coronavirus.

Microsoft Corporation launched at the beginning of the year the AI for Health, a five-year program which initially had to empower researchers and organizations to improve the health of people and communities around the world. The program is underpinned with a strong foundation of privacy, security and ethics, and was developed in collaboration with leading health experts who are driving important medical initiatives. But now the necessity has changed and given the urgency, Microsoft is mobilizing the AI for Health initiative to focus on helping those involved in the research field for COVID-19.

 

This is what Microsoft reported in its press release:

“This is part of Microsoft’s larger commitment toward fighting COVID-19, as we are working to support remote education and empower students around the world, enabling businesses to work from home, securing needed medical supplies and supporting local communities. We hope this added commitment empowers researchers and organizations to solve this crisis.

The work to fight COVID-19 is already underway. A handful of key partnerships include:

• The COVID-19 High-Performance Computing Consortium, a private-public effort spearheaded by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, for which Microsoft is providing researchers access to the world’s most powerful computing resources, which can significantly speed the pace of scientific discovery in the fight to stop the virus. Around the world, Microsoft’s research scientists, spanning computer science, biology, medicine and public health, are collaborating on projects in the consortium

• The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), a global health research organization at the University of Washington School of Medicine, is releasing a set of COVID-19 data visualizations and forecasts that the White House, FEMA, governors and hospital administrators have started using to mobilize resources

• The Washington State Department of Health is working on a new dashboard that aims to increase timeliness, accuracy and speed of data reporting to the public. The dashboard relies on data reported by local health jurisdictions, healthcare facilities and labs

• Folding@home, a global organization that uses distributed computing is researching COVID-19 proteins that could help with designing therapeutics

• The Sepsis Center of Research Excellence (SCORE-UW), part of the University of Washington’s Department of Medicine, is a global collaboration between a network of hospitals, industry, blood banks, universities and funding partners. Using clinical data, radiologic imaging and other patient biomarker responses, SCORE-UW is developing novel algorithms to predict, and improve, healthcare and socioeconomic outcomes of COVID-19 positive patients

• Take, the Brazilian leader in chatbots and the smart contacts market, developed a bot to bring official and credible information to the public and connect potential patients to medical teams to avoid overloading Brazilian hospitals”

 

AI for Health to stop COVID-19 spread

Technology will play a fundamental role in this fight against COVID-19, as given the global scale of the pandemic. AI will be useful to crunch massive datasets in analyzing disease vectors and identifying treatment impacts. Microsoft will collaborate with nonprofits, governments and academic researchers on solutions, and bring our experience to the table, providing access to Microsoft AI, technical experts, data scientists and other resources. The goal is not only to help but to make the world better aware of what COVID-19 can course. 

Read more about this program