AI Tool To Prevent Electronic Health Record Outages During Blackouts
Isaac Premkumar, MS’26, data analytics engineering, and Ishan Chaudhary, MS’26, data analytics engineering, received a Microsoft Open Source AI Hackathon judge’s choice award for MedQGraph, an AI-integrated tool to store and analyze medical records so they can be retrieved even when electronic health record systems are down. When paired with an AI voice tool the students dubbed Samantha, it can reduce appointment wait times.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Kate Rix. Main photo: Isaac Premkumar and Ishan Chaudhary developed two tools that could make it easier to schedule doctors’ appointments even when electronic record systems are down. Courtesy Photo
Northeastern students develop AI tool to prevent electronic health record outages from delaying care
SEATTLE—Last summer, a bungled software update led to canceled medical appointments and surgeries across the country when a national electronic health record system went down for 24 hours.
Incidents of electronic health record (EHR) downtimes are increasing, putting patient care at risk and delaying appointment scheduling. But computer science students at Northeastern University have developed an AI-integrated tool to store and analyze medical records so they can be retrieved—even when an EHR system is down.
When paired with an AI voice receptionist, the tool—named Samantha by the students—has the potential to reduce the time patients have to wait to get an appointment with a doctor, which can add up to a month or even longer.
“There’s a huge wait period because hospital staff have to analyze the documents of incoming patients,” says Isaac Premkumar, a graduate computer science student on Northeastern’s Seattle campus. When EHR systems are down, Premkumar says, making an appointment will take longer or may not be possible at all.
Working with fellow student Ishan Chaudhary, Premkumar developed MedQGraph, which extracts patient information from a hospital’s electronic health record system to help providers better understand patient medical histories when making treatment plans.
Together, MedQGraph and Samantha function as an interface for patients who want to schedule appointments over the phone.
Read full story at Northeastern Global News