Events

Though the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare warrants genuine enthusiasm, meaningful impact will require careful integration into clinical care. AI tools are susceptible to mistakes and rarely capable of capturing all of the nuances pertaining to a complex clinical situation. Thus, we propose approaches designed to augment, rather than replace, clinicians during clinical decision making.

In this talk, Associate Professor Jenna Wiens will highlight three related research directions pertaining to:
i) a transfer learning approach for mitigating potentially harmful shortcuts when making diagnoses
ii) a simple yet accurate deterioration index that generalizes across hospitals and
iii) lessons learned during deployment of a risk stratification tool for predicting healthcare-associated infections.

In summary, there’s a critical need for machine learning in healthcare; however, the safe and meaningful adoption of these techniques will require collaboration between clinicians and AI.

Governments around the world have invested substantial resources to assess the societal benefit of research, despite a lack of clarity around the underlying definitions, methodologies and processes. In Australia, the ARC has just completed a review of the Excellence in Research for Australia and the Engagement and Impact Assessment. A strategy for future assessments has also been developed.

While confidence in how research systems work is crucial, acknowledgement of inherent challenges is essential for robust universities. Is there a tendency for evaluation to focus on what can be measured, rather than what should be measured when considering the societal benefit of research? Such examinations are especially pressing to ensure the evaluation of research in Australia and elsewhere is responsible, appropriate and ethical. Come along to this critical issues seminar to hear experts explore how we can better understand and revisit the appropriate or desirable role of public-funded research in society.

This event is held as part of National Social Science Week 2021.