January 5, 2023

Computable knowledge: Colleagues gather to discuss how computers can help translate discoveries into better, faster health interventions

Making a new scientific discovery is one thing. Putting that knowledge to actionable use across a complex, decentralized healthcare system is another.

A recent seminar session hosted by Michigan Medicine Learning Health Science experts and counterparts at Peking University Health Science Center focused on new ways that computers and “computable knowledge” are being leveraged to help scientists more efficiently and quickly apply their discoveries to practical interventions that improve health systems and patients’ lives.

“There is critical gap between discovery and application. What we need is a way to close this gap,” said UMMS Learning Health Science Chair and Professor Charles P. Friedman, PhD. “The way to make it possible to jump this gap is to make biomedical knowledge computable – not in words in pictures, but in code.”

Friedman was joined by other Michigan Medicine experts including Rachel Richesson, PhD, MPH, MS, Akbar Waljee, MD, MSc, and Allen Flynn, PhD, PharmD. From PKUHSC, Hang Li, MD, and Guilan Kong, PhD, provided recorded presentations.

The December 16 session was part of the Joint Institute’s ongoing Bridging Conference virtual seminar series.