UCLA Health has received a five-year, $25 million grant to lead a national program for testing and evaluation of AI tools geared towards treating patients with neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
The funding from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) will support a nationwide effort to validate AI technologies designed for diagnosis and treatment of patients living with Alzheimer's and various dementias.
The UCLA Health-led initiative, known as Accelerating Platforms for Evaluating and Executing AI Lifecycles in Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (APEX-ADRD), involves a collaboration with other health care entities including Mayo Clinic and the University of Wisconsin.
“As we continue to adapt to the rapidly evolving AI landscape, this new venture represents a significant step forward for UCLA Health as a center of excellence in the evaluation of AI tools to support clinicians,” said Johnese Spisso, president of UCLA Health and CEO of the UCLA Hospital System. “Serving as the lead institution on this initiative, our team’s efforts will ultimately help researchers and health systems nationwide evaluate emerging technologies more effectively for patients diagnosed with dementia.”
With over 7.2 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s Disease – a number expected to rise in the coming decades – the program offers the potential to help clinicians identify cognitive decline earlier, personalize care plans, support caregivers and considerably reduce administrative burdens.
“Older adults living with dementia have the most to gain and the most to lose,” said Dr. John N. Mafi, associate professor of medicine and co-director of UCLA Health’s Innovations and Outcomes Validation of AI (INOVAi) Center. “Our program will bring rigor to every stage of an AI tool’s journey – the data it learns from, how it is built and how it performs in real-world care. As a national resource, we will fund and support teams across the country at every step.”
A distinguishing feature of the initiative is its commitment to ensuring that AI benefits all patients by evaluating technologies across California’s diverse population while partnering with other institutions to validate findings in different health care settings. Evaluation frameworks and safety monitoring standards developed through APEX-ADRD will be shared nationally through the NIA network, helping investigators identify risk factors before AI-powered technologies are broadly deployed. By pairing one of the nation's largest and secure health system datasets across the entire UC health system with fast, fair and transparent testing, the program helps ensure the AI tools that reach patients work for everyone.
In collaboration with Dr. Mafi on this initiative are Dr. Joann Elmore, professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA (DGSOM), Gilbert Foundation Endowed Chair in Health Care Delivery and American Cancer Society research professor, and Alex Bui, PhD, senior associate director for informatics in the Clinical and Translational Science Institute and professor of radiological sciences, bioengineering and bioinformatics.
“AI has enormous potential to improve dementia care, but potential is not the same as evidence,” said Elmore. “The ultimate measure of an AI tool is now how impressive the technology is, but whether it improves care for patients and families. The initiative will allow us to evaluate these technologies rigorously and quickly with patients, caregivers and clinicians at the center of that work.”
The new program will leverage the institution’s experience conducting comprehensive evaluations of AI tools in alignment with UCLA Health's broader strategic planning for responsible usage of AI technology.
