PROVIDENCE – While working in data and artificial intelligence Rhode Island native Severence MacLaughlin noticed health care professionals often use AI and automation to help with administrative tasks. But he said there hasn't been as much progress applying the technology directly to patient health.
MacLaughlin, who was born and raised in North Kingstown, decided he wanted to fill this void in health care.
“I went all in,” said MacLaughlin who quit his job, sold his house and investments five years ago so he could focus on launching his company that would become known as DeLorean AI.
It’s no coincidence if the name sounds familiar. The technology leverages AI to understand a patient’s current condition and offer predictions for future health events, like the time-traveling DeLorean from the "Back to the Future" films, MacLaughlin said.
“We are going to the future to get information and I just thought of ‘Back to the Future,’" said MacLaughlin, who is admittedly a huge fan of ’80s movies.
[caption id="attachment_460415" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Rhode Island native Severence MacLaughlin created DeLorean AI, technology that incorporates AI to understand a patient’s current condition and offer predictions for future health events. /COURTESY DELOREAN AI[/caption]
DeLorean AI’s technology is now used in more than 430 clinics throughout the U.S., including the Innovative Renal Care clinic in Warwick and locations across the country.
Specifically, Innovative Renal Care uses DeLorean AI’s Renal AI technology that is meant to assist physicians with patients with end stage renal disease and chronic kidney disease as well as help identify patients with undiagnosed conditions. Renal AI uses patient data to provide doctors with a real time risk stratification of patient risk levels. It also offers predictions for whether a patient will get better or if they will have a medical emergency. Additionally, doctors are given recommendations for each patient like what medication to prescribe or whether testing is needed.
"We are proud to be at the forefront of innovation in the dialysis space,” said Dr. Geoffrey Walker, chief medical officer of Innovative Renal Care. “Our partnership with DeLorean AI will enable a level of prediction in patient care that doesn’t exist today.”
But DeLorean’s technology is not just for renal conditions as it is also designed to help doctors treating diabetes, cardiac, respiratory and mental health conditions, MacLaughlin said.
For example, MacLaughlin said the technology has been able to predict if a patient was going to have a heart attack within six weeks with 88% accuracy. Additionally it was recognized as the first AI product to be biologically validated. This means predictions and forecasts generated by the technology have been confirmed by a third party laboratory with tests and follow ups.
Now MacLaughlin says he has been in talks with international governments about expanding DeLorean AI worldwide.
As DeLorean AI expands its reach, digital technology and AI have become increasingly present within Rhode Island’s health care community.
“AI is affecting all of us and it will be even more prevalent in the future,” said Dr. Raj Hazarika, chief medical officer for commercial products at Point32Health, during PBN’s fall Health Care Summit in October 2023.
More recently Brown University and Care New England Health System announced in January they were partnering to offer medical students the opportunity to serve as an Epic physician builder/informaticist. In those role, students would be planning, designing and building content for medical or surgical specialties within Care New England’s Epic electronic medical record system, or EMR.
In a recent Five Questions with Providence Business News, Tomas Gregorio, chief information officer of Care New England, said this program is building on a trend of medical schools shifting curricula to focus on digital tools.
“As health care is becoming more reliant on technology and data, digital health topics such as telemedicine, artificial intelligence and health informatics become core tools in a physician’s practice of medicine,” Gregorio said.
Lifespan Corp., the state’s largest health system, is not shying away from AI either. For example, back in 2022 Rhode Island hospital became the first in New England to use an AI software to help treat persistent atrial fibrillation.
Katie Castellani is a PBN staff writer. You may contact her at Castellani@PBN.com.
