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The ideas and innovators shaping health care | | | | |  | | By Erin Schumaker, Carmen Paun, Daniel Payne and Ruth Reader | | | | | 
Crapo is in study mode when it comes to AI. | AP | During recent hearings, lawmakers have admitted not fully understanding witnesses when they talk about artificial intelligence’s growing role in health care, POLITICO’s Ben Leonard reports. They’re in a learning phase and asking questions about: — The potential for AI to replace doctors — Nonclinical AI tools that could alleviate burdens on the health care workforce — Patient privacy and safety — The potential effect of regulation on start-up tech firms’ ability to raise funds Even formulating the right questions can be difficult for some members, they acknowledge. “Sometimes, we don’t even really understand what we’re asking,” Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) admitted at an AMA meeting this week. Senate Finance Committee ranking member Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said during a recent hearing that Congress needs to get over its learning curve before trying to change or create laws. “One-size-fits-all, overly rigid and unduly bureaucratic laws and regulations risk stifling life-saving advances and becoming outdated before they are even codified,” he said.
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Yosemite National Park, Calif. | Sam Oates | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. If you’re going to advise the Catholic Church on artificial intelligence, you need a unique set of skills: meet “the man who knows both AI and God.” Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp.
| | |  Research is giving hope to people who suffer from sleep apnea. | Getty Images | The National Institutes of Health has awarded $4.1 million to Mount Sinai hospital researchers to further develop and test an artificial intelligence model to predict health complications from obstructive sleep apnea. The researchers say a better understanding of the condition’s underlying causes could improve treatment and patient care. Why it matters: About 39 million adults in the U.S. have obstructive sleep apnea, a disorder in which people stop and start breathing while they're sleeping, according to the National Council on Aging. Many of them don’t have an official diagnosis, and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine estimates that about 80 percent of them aren't getting treatment. That can lead to complications, including fatigue and cardiovascular problems like heart attack, stroke and high blood pressure. How it works: The Mount Sinai researchers tested one of their models on preliminary data from three groups of nearly 11,000 participants. Their findings suggest the model can predict the probability of fatigue for people with sleep apnea with about 87 percent accuracy. The current obstructive sleep apnea diagnostic tool, which measures the number of times a person stops breathing while sleeping, is only 54 percent accurate at predicting who will experience fatigue. A second model, using data from nearly 4,700 participants, could predict the probability of dying from cardiovascular-related causes with 81 percent accuracy compared with the existing model, which is 58 percent accurate. What's next? The team will test both models on Mount Sinai Integrative Sleep Center patients participating in sleep studies. In addition to measuring their brain waves, oxygen levels, heart rate and breathing while sleeping, the patients will keep sleep diaries during the studies.
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Air pollution is growing problem for public health, a research group says. | Charlie Riedel/AP | Millions more Americans will breathe dirty air by 2054 compared to today, erasing decades of progress in improving air quality, according to new research by climate risk group First Street Foundation. How so? It’s the result of rising temperatures, stronger droughts and more intense wildfires, all fueled by climate change, POLITICO’s Zack Colman reports. Smoke from wildfires and ground-level ozone that come with hotter temperatures will result in additional days with poor air quality. First Street’s modeling projects: — Harmful particulate matter from wildfire smoke will rise 8 percent by 2054 compared with 2004 levels — Acute increases of PM2.5 — a particularly dangerous pollutant that exacerbates heart and lung diseases — from wildfire smoke in the Pacific Northwest, California, interior Western states like Idaho, and the border area between Florida and Georgia — Spikes in ground-level ozone, or smog, across Rust Belt states, such as Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, and East Coast states, such as Connecticut and New York, as a result of rising temperatures interacting with precursor pollutants like nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide Why it matters: The number of people in the U.S. facing at least one unhealthy day of air quality will rise by 51 percent by 2054, from 83.1 million to 125.2 million people. Even so: First Street’s estimates are likely conservative given the analysis accounted for wildfire smoke originating only in the United States, said Jeremy Porter, head of the firm's climate implications research. That means it wouldn’t have caught the haze from Canadian wildfires that blanketed much of the Midwest and East Coast last summer, making air unhealthy across those regions for weeks. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
