Research seminar: Professor Ciara Heavin

Join us in welcoming Professor Ciara Heavin from the University College Cork to Trinity Business School on Monday, 18th of Nov 2024.

Please REGISTER HERE.

Seminar Title: Beyond Intuition: Transforming Palliative Triage with Data-Driven Decision Systems

Abstract: There is a growing need to deliver palliative care to patients with acute, advanced care needs in the community, yet often those most in need of care do not receive it. With advances in medicine, the complexity of patient care needs continues to increase, creating additional tasks for already overstretched healthcare professionals who are committed to delivering gold standard care. The data and systems remain dated and siloed resulting in significant additional work for healthcare professionals required to build “a complete picture” of patient stability to deliver consistent, standard, and safe care. This presents significant challenges globally in terms of accurate, real-time patient triaging, caseload management and the allocation of “the right care to the right patient (and their families/carers) at the right time.” Cognitive burden is a real issue, healthcare providers are under pressure from burnout and as such are struggling to retain experienced staff. Our research project, CommPAL, aims to use the advanced computational capabilities of AI to address the needs for practical, fair decision-making required in palliative care, setting a precedent for future research and application in the domain. The integration of AI in healthcare has the potential to significantly enhance patient care, particularly in palliative care where accurate and timely patient triaging is of paramount importance. The complexity of medical data and the need for nuanced decision-making in palliative care present unique challenges. These challenges demand not only a high degree of predictive accuracy from AI but also a level of transparency and interpretability that engenders trust among healthcare providers.

Bio: Ciara Heavin is a Professor of Business Information Systems at Cork University Business School, University College Cork, Ireland. Her research focuses on opportunities for using information systems (IS) in the global healthcare ecosystem and in digital transformation. Ciara has directed funded research in the investigation, development, and implementation of innovative technology solutions in the healthcare domain. She has published articles in several top international IS journals and conference proceedings. Ciara Heavin has coauthored three books with Daniel J. Power: Decision Support, Analytics, and Business Intelligence, Data-Based Decision Making and Digital Transformation, and Becoming Agile.

Note: Tea/coffee and pastries will be served during the seminar at 419.

Photographs will be taken during this seminar and may be shared on social media. If you do not wish to appear, please notify tbs.research@tcd.ie.