AI Could Help Save Patients from Extreme Heat
To save patients in extreme heat, a hospital turns to AI
AI could be used to paint through electronic health files and warn vulnerable people of dangerous heat waves
Tourists try to escape the effects of a heat wave in Washington, DC, last week.
Andrew Harnik / Getty images
Climatewire | When extreme heat strikes the Boston region, emergency services are filled with dehydrated people, experiencing kidney or heart problems, or who have heat cramps.
Now, a health care system that serves 2.5 million patients in the Massachusetts turns to artificial intelligence to get help.
“The stress of heat aggravates these conditions, and we will see a leap of 10% of people in the emergency room not only for heat disease, but also weakness or syncope or other conditions due to heat,” said Paul Biddinger, head of preparation and continuity in mass general Brigham, the non -profit academic health system that works on a new warning system heat.
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In February, MGB was one of the five candidates to join a sustainability accelerator managed by IBM. The program aims to help the communities face environmental and economic stress through technology. He had received more than 100 proposals to use AI to advance sustainability and climate resilience.
The idea is simple: use AI to comb through electronic health files to find patients who have health problems or take medication that could make them particularly vulnerable to heat. The AI program would warn them when a heat wave arrives and told patients how to protect themselves so that they do not find themselves in an emergency room. The tool would include safety features to protect patient health information.
Ideally, the combination of personalized information, real -time heat data and “usable messages” will help patients protect themselves.
“We believe that patients will pay more attention if it is their doctor, their hospital saying:” Hey, you are at risk and here is what to do “, that if they see the news that it will be hot tomorrow,” said Bidding.
Heat kills around 2,300 people each year in the United States, more than any other type of extreme meteorological event, and leads to the hospitalization of thousands of others. These figures should increase as the temperatures of climate change turbocharges, with an estimate calculating that emergency rooms could be flooded with 235,000 additional visitors each summer. The same report, by the Center for American Progress, estimated that the costs of health care linked to extreme heat would represent $ 1 billion per year.
The mass general Brigham offers training to doctors and nurses on how climate change could affect patients. Some particularly vulnerable patients suffering from complex or overlapping medical conditions are assigned cases to discuss these risks.
“Just as we want our patients to control their blood sugar if they suffer from diabetes or are not exposed to poor air quality if they have a respiratory disease, trying to help them protect themselves from heat by communicating when they are at high risk is a responsibility for health care, and we try to do better,” said the biddignger.
But warning patients proactively is a large-scale order for humans by themselves.
Patients with complex medical conditions are assigned care managers who follow patients more closely and contact them before a heat wave strikes to “support their health”. But there are not enough staff to reach all those who have a heart or a renal state, or those whose houses may not have air conditioning.
The AI program is still being developed, but Biddinger said he was considering he has a chatbot function, so that patients can ask questions when they receive an alert.
“Our primary care physicians are so overwhelmed these days, and we don’t want them to be stuck while waiting for their doctor when we can use AI to help them identify cooling centers or public places with air conditioning where they can go to stay cool,” he said.
The AI alert system is supposed to be a pilot program so that technology can be developed with IBM in the next two years. If it works, it could be shared with other hospitals.
“This does not develop as a product focused on profits. It is supposed to be a community service that health centers across the country could also use to support their patients, “said Bidding.
Reprinted with E & E News With the permission of politico, LLC. Copyright 2025. E & E News provides essential news to energy and environmental professionals.
