ROCHESTER — More than 200 computer scientists, health researchers and medical professionals are in Rochester this weekend for the Machine Learning for Healthcare conference.

The goal: more collaboration between the scientists who create artificial intelligence algorithms and the health care providers who will ultimately use them.

“Historically, the conference has been primarily scientists, I would say,” said Shauna Overgaard, Mayo Clinic’s senior director of AI strategy and frameworks. “It’s fairly recent that they’ve really tried to include clinicians, which is, in part, why they sought out Mayo Clinic to be the host this year.”

Mayo Clinic’s hosting duties come as the health system emphasizes its role in health care AI development and partnerships. Last month, Mayo Clinic and NVIDIA announced their partnership to support Mayo’s AI models using the tech company’s DGX SuperPOD supercomputer.

At Mayo Clinic’s own AI Summit this summer, in-house AI leaders spoke about the nearly 100 AI algorithms currently used in clinical settings and “building AI into the fabric of Mayo.”

“Mayo Clinic is a physician-run organization,” Overgaard said. “If we’re doing any development of AI solutions, clinicians have, foundationally, been at the center of that.”

While many of the conference attendees represent the computer science side of AI, Thursday’s pre-conference workshop was designed for doctors and other clinicians to get some hands-on experience with AI development. The morning began with an address from two leaders at the American Medical Association, the country’s largest physician organization.

“As AI has become part of our daily conversation, it oftentimes turns to, ‘What about AI ethics?'” said Dr. Frederick Chen, the AMA’s chief health and science officer. “Where’s the role of humanity in AI and AI development?”

A majority of physicians surveyed by AMA already use AI tools, such as scribes that create patient visit notes, and hundreds of FDA-cleared, AI-powered medical devices are available in the American market.

“There is a massive amount of money pouring into this space, in what I’ll broadly call health care AI,” said Christopher Khoury, AMA’s vice president of strategic insights.

But AI use is just one of many factors influencing the health care ecosystem: provider burnout and shortages, time restraints, legal liability, an aging population and more.

“Things to think about, when we’re talking about technological solutions: do those solutions actually address any of these things and make lives easier?” Khoury said.

Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin

Into the afternoon, workshop attendees took two health care AI-focused courses from NVIDIA’s online educational arm.

“Hopefully clinicians feel like they’re actually coding and actually getting into the weeds of ML,” said Dr. Kaivalya Deshpande, a physician at NYU Langone Hospital – Brooklyn and an MLHC program chair.

The MLHC conference takes place at the Hilton in downtown Rochester on Friday, Aug. 15 and Saturday, Aug. 16.

Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin