Almudena Bonet Medina, representative of Telefónica Tech, highlighted the importance of disease prevention and health promotion. Telefónica’s approach focuses on three pillars: digital transformation, native digital solutions and robust infrastructure and security. Bonet discussed the deployment of healthcare data management platforms, or data lakes, that provide a global view of patient information accessible to various stakeholders. These platforms aim to improve patient care and treatment by facilitating better access and integration of data.
He also emphasized the need for data governance and a culture of digital transformation to ensure ethical and trustworthy AI applications. He highlighted practical examples such as Genomcore’s Biomedical Information Management System (BIMS), which integrates and processes multimodal health data while ensuring the security of user data. Another example was the emergency dashboard, an AI-powered tool to support decision-making in emergency departments by predicting patient flow and resource needs. He underlined the importance of having ethical and trustworthy AI solutions, emphasizing the transparency efforts that Telefónica advances to improve the credibility of AI initiatives.
Hannah Richardson, from Microsoft Research, began by presenting a case study on the use of AI in hospital care, specifically focusing on the project with Providence, a large hospital and healthcare organization that serves several states in the western United States. This initiative aims to create computer models from clinical trial data and electronic medical records to identify trends and reduce the administrative burden on medical professionals. The project uses a human-centred approach to consider the implications for both patients and clinical teams.
Richardson also introduced Project MAIRA, a research project aimed at helping radiologists provide effective care to patients. Richardson outlined five key practices essential for successful AI integration: multidisciplinary teams, responsible AI principles, data governance, a comprehensive data strategy, and practitioner engagement. He emphasized the need for diverse data sources and the participation of all stakeholders to ensure that AI systems are fair, effective and beneficial to healthcare professionals. He spoke of the potential for AI to better understand human biology and deliver better healthcare. For this vision to be successful, it is necessary to take into account the responsible use and correct applications of technology, always thinking about people.
Eugenio Minvielle, Founder and President of INNIT, highlighted the significant economic burden of food-related health costs, which amount to 11 billion dollars and exceed food expenses, which stand at 9 billion. He noted that this trend is projected to rise to $47 trillion in diet-related health costs by 2030. He raised the question of whether AI can help mitigate the impact of diet-related diseases on health. . In this regard, Minvielle presented INNIT, a Food LM (Language Model) platform that leverages artificial intelligence to help consumers make better-informed food decisions. The platform focuses on providing accurate recommendations, personalized information and tools to have a positive impact on health through diet. He shared an example of collaboration with Roche to help people with diabetes make daily dietary decisions, showing the potential of AI to address some diet-related health challenges.
Minvielle also highlighted a project with UNESCO to reduce the gender gap in cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes. About 25,000 women die every day from CVD (World Heart Federation), usually due to often silent symptoms that differ substantially from those of men. The project seeks to collect more data and develop AI tools that better recognize and address these disparities, ultimately reducing the high CVD mortality rate in women.
Angel Melguizo, from UNESCO, highlighted the transformative role of AI in democratizing access to healthcare and expanding its reach, especially for the most vulnerable populations. He stressed the importance of ensuring that AI remains beneficial through responsible development and application. However, today funds are mostly allocated to technological development and less to specific solutions. For example, the market capitalization of the top 20 chipmakers is equivalent to the entire pharmaceutical sector (more than 700 companies, including J&J, Merck, Novartis and Pfizer), and NVIDIA’s capitalization exceeds that of 165 global healthcare companies (including Cigna , CVS and Walgreens).
Melguizo also highlighted the importance of neuroscience and neurotechnology as the next significant advances in the healthcare sector, driven by emerging technologies such as AI. He noted that UNESCO is actively working on developing ethical recommendations for the use and development of neurotechnology, similar to its efforts with AI. UNESCO’s frameworks aim to ensure the ethical deployment of these technologies, reinforcing its commitment to reliable and human-centred technology.
