University of Oxford

Introduction to Computational Health Informatics

Computational Health Informatics (or CHI) laboratory based at Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Oxford, UK.

CHI Lab focuses on “AI in healthcare”, sometimes known as Clinical AI, and exists at the interface between machine learning and health informatics. Members of the lab share a common interest in deep learning, Bayesian inference, and related methods. CHI lab has access to some of the world’s largest, curated, anonymised healthcare datasets, and includes work with wearables and hospital data, across scales from the massively multivariate (including anonymised genomics) to the high-rate data acquired from medical devices.

Systems developed as a result of our collaborative work are routinely used in the care of patients within the UK National Health Service, and for improving access to healthcare in the developing world. Clinical collaboration is at the heart of each of our projects, with biomedical engineers working alongside clinical colleagues, which ensures that each project feeds directly into the care of patients.

Team of CHI lab

Prof. David Clifton

Professor of Clinical Machine Learning

About

Prof. David Clifton

David Clifton is Professor of Clinical Machine Learning in the Department of Engineering Science of the University of Oxford.  He is a Research Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and leads the Computational Health Informatics (CHI) Laboratory, which focuses on creating healthcare interventions based on AI. Prof. Clifton trained in information engineering at the same department; his research focuses on the development of machine learning for tracking the health of complex systems, with an emphasis on healthcare technologies that are deployed within the UK National Health Service.  Prof. Clifton’s research has been awarded 26 scholarships and prizes, including a Grand Challenge award from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which is a personal award that provides long-term strategic support for nine “future leaders in healthcare”.  In 2018, his lab of 27 researchers opened a second site in China, with support from the Chinese government.  His research was awarded the overall inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Innovation Award in 2018 which aims to recognise leading interdisciplinary research across the entirety of Oxford University.  In 2019, the Wellcome Trust’s first International Flagship Centre opened, joining Prof. Clifton’s Oxford-based lab to the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, with a focus on translating healthcare technologies into resource-constrained settings.

Publications

David has published more than 200 articles in international peer-reviewed journals.

Link Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mFN2KJ4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Link ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Clifton

Key recent research articles:

  1. Abebe G, Zhu T, Prince J, Javed H, Kiyasseh D, Clifton D, Thwaites, Louise, Yen L, Le Van T,& van Doorn, HR, Le Nguyen Thanh N, Hung N, Truong K, Quang P, Tran D, Duong H, Hao N. (2020). Severity Detection Tool for Patients with Infectious Disease. Healthcare Technology Letters. doi: 10.1049/htl.2019.0030.
  1. Hoang MTV, Nguyen TA, Tran TT, Vu TTH, Le NTN, Nguyen THN, Le THN, Nguyen TTH, Nguyen TH, Le NTN, Truong HK, Du TQ, Ha MT, Ho LV, Do CV, Nguyen TN, Nguyen TMT, Sabanathan S, Phan TQ, Nguyen Van VC, Thwaites GE, Wills B, Thwaites CL, Le VT, van Doorn HR. Clinical and aetiological study of hand, foot and mouth disease in southern Vietnam, 2013-2015: Inpatients and outpatients. Int J Infect Dis. 2019 Mar;80:1-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2018.12.004. Epub 2018 Dec 11
  1. Anh NT, Nhu LNT, Van HMT, Hong NTT, Thanh TT, Hang VTT, Ny NTH, Nguyet LA, Phuong TTL, Nhan LNT, Hung NT, Khanh TH, Tuan HM, Viet HL, Nam NT, Viet DC, Qui PT, Wills B, Sabanathan S, Chau NVV, Thwaites L, Rogier van Doorn H, Thwaites G, Rabaa MA, Van Tan L. Emerging Coxsackievirus A6 Causing Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease, Vietnam. Emerg Infect Dis. 2018 Apr;24(4):654-662. doi: 10.3201/eid2404.171298
  1. Geoghegan JL, Tan le V, Kühnert D, Halpin RA, Lin X, Simenauer A, Akopov A, Das SR, Stockwell TB, Shrivastava S, Ngoc NM, Uyen le TT, Tuyen NT, Thanh TT, Hang VT, Qui PT, Hung NT, Khanh TH, Thinh le Q, Nhan le NT, Van HM, Viet do C, Tuan HM, Viet HL, Hien TT, Chau NV, Thwaites G, Grenfell BT, Stadler T, Wentworth DE, Holmes EC, Van Doorn HR. Phylodynamics of Enterovirus A71-Associated Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease in Viet Nam. J Virol. 2015 Sep;89(17):8871-9. doi: 10.1128/JVI.00706-15. Epub 2015 Jun 17.

Introduction to OHSCAR

The Oxford Health Systems Research Collaboration (OHSCAR) is working towards strengthening Health Systems Research with low and middle income country collaborators. It aims to enable scientists from Oxford to create new knowledge with LMIC colleagues and build capacity in global health systems research while promoting the bi-directional transfer of knowledge between Oxford and LMIC.

Health systems strengthening is key to achieving the new UN Sustainable Development Goals through universal coverage with high quality health care. The Oxford Health Systems Collaboration (OHSCAR) is an Oxford based group led by Professor Mike English together with Dr Chris Paton and Dr Jake McKnight. The team have particular expertise in multidisciplinary research often focused on the neglected challenge of improving the performance of district hospital level services that support newborn and child health. Examples of work include: developing a long-term ‘learning health system’ approach with Kenyan hospitals to improve quality of care; examining effective coverage of neonatal care and the particularly important and neglected role of nursesleadership and management; and the emergence of and challenges with electronic health records and the potential of mHealth based training tools (LIFE).

Team of OHSCAR

Dr. Chris Paton

Head of the Global Health Informatics Group

About

Dr. Chris Paton

Dr Chris Paton is the Head of the Global Health Informatics Group at the University of Oxford. His research group investigates how new digital health technologies such as electronic health records (EHRs), mHealth apps, and new machine learning techniques can be used to improve healthcare.

Following his training as a medical doctor in the UK, he moved into Clinical Informatics and worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute for Health Innovation in New Zealand before returning to the UK to join the University of Oxford. He received his Fellowship of the UK Faculty of Clinical Informatics in 2018 and became an Official Fellow of Parks College, Oxford in 2019.

He is the Principal Investigator for the LIFE (Life-saving Instruction for Emergencies) project. LIFE is a smartphone-based simulation training platform that uses a virtual hospital environment to simulate medical emergencies to train healthcare workers. Launched in April 2019, LIFE has now been downloaded by thousands of healthcare workers in Africa and Dr Paton is now leading a clinical trial of the platform in Kenya funded by GCRF. See here for a BBC interview about the project.

Dr Paton collaborates on several large-scale international projects including NEST360, a £50 million initiative that aims to deliver new technologies and training to improve neonatal care in Africa and a new Wellcome Trust Innovation Flagship in Vietnam that will develop and implement a range of new AI-based monitoring devices in intensive care units (ICUs) in South-East Asia.

He currently supervises 3 DPhil students at the University of Oxford with Professor Niall Winters in the Department of Education and Professor Mike English at the Nuffield Department of Medicine. He also lectures and supervises students for the MSc in International Health and Tropical Medicine.

Dr Paton has served as a digital health consultant the New Zealand Government and the Pathways for Prosperity Commission. He co-founded and chaired the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) social media working group and is currently co-chair of the IMIA open source working group. He is Associate Editor of “Digital Health Journal” (Sage Publishing) and “BMC: Medical Informatics and Decision Making”. He is a peer reviewer on digital health topics for scientific journals including Nature, PLOS One, JAMIA, JMIR, ANZJPH and serves as an expert grant reviewer for the UK’s Medical Research Council, the Research Council of Norway. He is also the Founder and Editor of the Health Informatics Forum, an online professional learning community that offers free courses, seminars and online discussion with a membership of over 11,000 health informatics professionals around the world.