# From Code to Care: How UC San Diego Is Leading the Way in AI for Health Care - UC San Diego Today

*Источник: UC San Diego Today*
*Дата: 2026-07-28*
*Язык: en*

**Кратко:** From Code to Care: How UC San Diego Is Leading the Way in AI for Health Care
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Patrick “Paddy” O’Donnell was 20 years old when he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive and terminal brain cancer. Doctors initially told him and his family to “enjoy life” because there was no cure.

From Code to Care: How UC San Diego Is Leading the Way in AI for Health Care
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Patrick “Paddy” O’Donnell was 20 years old when he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive and terminal brain cancer. Doctors initially told him and his family to “enjoy life” because there was no cure. The prognosis was devastating — roughly six months to live.
Instead, Paddy lived three years. Those years included returning to the University of Utah to continue his studies, spending time with friends and family and continuing to pursue the life he loved. His journey became a powerful example of how research, clinical care and emerging technologies can come together to create new possibilities for patients.
Paddy’s story and the world-class care he received at UC San Diego Health became the centerpiece of a panel discussion at the 2026 U.S. News & World Report Healthcare of Tomorrow conference, where leaders from University of California San Diego and others across the health care industry gathered in Washington, D.C., to explore one of medicine's defining questions: How can artificial intelligence (AI) improve health care while keeping patients at the center?
“It’s all about the patient,” said Anne O’Donnell, Paddy’s mother. “I always felt we had hope. I always felt we had options.”
O’Donnell, who recently retired as senior executive director for corporate strategy and engagement at UC San Diego, joined Alexander Khalessi, MD, chief innovation officer and neurosurgeon at UC San Diego Health, and industry leaders on stage to discuss how AI is changing medicine. But before conversations about technology, imaging or clinical decision support tools began, the audience heard a mother’s story.
After Paddy’s diagnosis, O’Donnell sought a health system where researchers and clinicians worked together. She found that at UC San Diego.
“There was a clear relationship between research and care,” she said. “I wanted the most innovative opportunities possible to save our son.”
For Khalessi, who was Paddy’s surgeon, his case illustrates why AI matters.
“We all recognize the special opportunity that comes with AI,” said Khalessi, who is also professor of neurological surgery, radiology and neurosciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine and holds the Don and Karen Cohn Chancellor's Endowed Chair of Neurological Surgery. “We’re driven by the urgency to find new options for patients when today’s treatments simply aren’t enough.”
In Paddy’s care, clinicians integrated advanced imaging, genomic data, pathology results and clinical expertise to tailor treatment — including immunotherapy — to the specific biology of his tumor. AI-supported tools helped clinicians organize and interpret enormous amounts of information while ensuring decisions remained grounded in human judgment.
The goal was not technology for technology’s sake. The goal was helping a patient live longer — and live better.
Building the AI-enabled health system
For UC San Diego, AI is an area of scientific leadership spanning basic discovery, clinical research and patient care.
Researchers across the university are developing AI tools that are transforming medicine long before patients arrive in the exam room. UC San Diego scientists have created deep-learning models that can predict life-threatening sepsis hours earlier than traditional methods, giving clinicians valuable time to begin treatment. Researchers have also developed AI technologies that improve radiation treatment planning for cervical cancer, making the process faster and more precise, while other teams are using AI to uncover new causes of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and identify potential therapeutic targets.
Those discoveries are increasingly finding their way into clinical practice. At the same time, UC San Diego's partnerships with technology companies are helping translate research and clinical expertise into tools that can address real-world challenges in health care.
For Philip Rackliffe, president and CEO of Advanced Imaging Solutions at GE HealthCare, the partnership with UC San Diego illustrates what can happen when clinicians, researchers and technology companies work together to solve problems that matter to patients. “When you take great clinicians, imaging technologies and academia and you put that together, it's where the special things really happen,” Rackliffe said.
One example is the use of AI-powered patient messaging to help people prepare for colonoscopies. By answering routine questions, sending personalized reminders and guiding patients through the often-complex preparation process, the technology reduced last-minute procedure cancellations from 10% to 3% while improving the patient experience. The result is better access to colorectal cancer screening and more time for care teams to focus on patients who need additional support.
Beyond patient messaging, AI is helping physicians prepare patients for procedures, streamline clinical documentation, improve communication and support complex medical decision making. The health system has also become a national testbed for responsible AI implementation, evaluating new technologies through rigorous clinical oversight before they are deployed in patient care.
“We’ve thought of three distinct categories of deployment for AI,” said Khalessi. “Patient-facing applications, clinical decision support tools and solutions that remove administrative burden to improve patient access and allow physicians to focus on care.”
Khalessi said that while AI can help clinicians navigate increasingly complex medical information, technology must always complement — not replace — clinical expertise.
“Any time AI is involved in the care of a patient, we’ve set a thoughtful standard for transparency and consent,” he said. “We’ve published our principles, are committed to establishing national best practices and are laser focused on bringing patients with us on that journey.”
Responsible innovation
As enthusiasm around AI grows, UC San Diego leaders are equally focused on ensuring its responsible use.
Karandeep Singh, MD, inaugural chief health AI officer at UC San Diego Health and Endowed Chair in Digital Health Innovation at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, emphasized that successful AI adoption depends on rigorous governance, transparency and scientific evaluation — not simply deploying new technologies.
“It's not enough to just measure a key performance indicator (or KPI),” Singh said, who is also the executive director of UC San Diego Health’s Jacobs Center for Health Innovation. “You need to wrap it with an evaluation design that lets you figure out if the KPI got better, if it actually meant something.”
Singh said every AI tool introduced into a health system should be evaluated the same way researchers evaluate new medical interventions: by measuring outcomes, publishing the results and allowing others to scrutinize the evidence.
“We need to equip our health systems to be learning health systems,” he said. “If you can’t do measurement, you can’t actually know if it worked. You write it, you report it and let other experts take a critical look at it. That’s the only way, collectively, we’re going to get to something that resembles a better health system than what we have today.”
That balanced, evidence-driven approach has become a defining principle of UC San Diego’s AI strategy. Rather than asking where AI can be inserted into health care, leaders are asking where it can solve meaningful problems for patients, providers and communities — and then rigorously proving that it does.
Leading the national conversation on AI
UC San Diego’s leadership in AI extends beyond research laboratories and hospital walls. Its influence was on display at the Healthcare of Tomorrow conference, where Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla joined Brian Kelly, editor at large at U.S. News, to discuss how AI is transforming medicine — and the responsibility academic institutions have to help guide that transformation.
As AI rapidly reshapes health care, UC San Diego is helping lead the national conversation about how the technology should be developed, governed and responsibly deployed across higher education, medicine and public policy.
“Universities have a unique responsibility to convene researchers, clinicians, policymakers and industry leaders to address not only what AI can do, but how it should be used responsibly,” said Khosla.
That leadership begins on campus. Earlier this year, UC San Diego hosted its inaugural AI Symposium, convening experts from medicine, engineering, computer science, public health and other disciplines to examine how artificial intelligence is reshaping research, education and clinical care. By bringing together experts with different perspectives, the university is fostering the thoughtful, multidisciplinary conversations needed to ensure AI advances responsibly and benefits society.
Speaking during the panel, Khosla emphasized the unique role universities play in AI innovation. “Our role is to create the conditions that allow people to explore what is possible,” said Khosla.
Khosla's leadership also extends beyond the university. Earlier this year, University of California President James B. Milliken appointed Khosla to serve on the new University of California AI Steering Committee, which is helping guide the responsible use of AI across the UC system. He has also met with members of Congress, including California Senator Adam Schiff, Senator Mike Rounds from South Dakota and Senator Roger Marshall from Kansas to discuss the opportunities and policy considerations surrounding AI in research, health care and higher education.
Together, these efforts position UC San Diego not only as a leader in advancing AI-driven research and patient care, but also as a trusted voice helping shape how artificial intelligence is responsibly developed, governed and applied across medicine and society.
The future starts with patients
The Healthcare of Tomorrow conference showcased cutting-edge technologies, influential leaders and ambitious visions for the future. Yet one message consistently rose above the rest.
Health care innovation begins and ends with patients.
For O’Donnell, that lesson is deeply personal.
When she reflects on her son’s journey, she thinks about the additional time he was given — time to return to college, spend time with friends and create memories with family.
The promise of AI extends well beyond faster diagnoses, smarter systems and more efficient care delivery. Its greatest potential lies in helping people live fuller lives.
Paddy’s story is a reminder that behind every data point is a person, behind every innovation is a patient, and behind every breakthrough is the hope that tomorrow’s care can be better than today’s.
For Anne O’Donnell, AI will never simply be about technology. It will always be about the three years her son was given — and the hope that future families may have even more.
Read more news about: School of Medicine, Health Sciences, UC San Diego Health
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[Оригинал](https://today.ucsd.edu/story/from-code-to-care-how-uc-san-diego-is-leading-the-way-in-ai-for-health-care)