Hackensack Meridian Health and Carenostics Receive Innovative Practice Award for AI-Driven Tool Used to Diagnose Kidney Disease

Hackensack Meridian Health, New Jersey’s largest and most comprehensive health network, along with Carenostics, a leading healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) company, recently accepted Bio-IT World’s Innovative Practice Award for their joint project that leverages AI for earlier clinical intervention in chronic kidney disease. The Innovative Practice Award highlights outstanding examples of how technology innovations and strategic partnerships can be applied to advance healthcare and life sciences research. The Carenostics and Hackensack Meridian Health teams were specifically honored for their work in clinical diagnostics.

Carenostics is a Hackensack Meridian Health partner working with the health network to develop machine-learning models that can predict previously undiagnosed and underdiagnosed kidney disease cases. This technology integrates various data sources, including electronic health records to generate recommendations for clinicians to consider for their patients' care.

“Hackensack Meridian Health is excited to partner with Carenostics to safely advance care and provide the best patient outcomes utilizing artificial intelligence,” said Kash Patel, Chief Digital and Information Officer. "Our providers have been eager to adopt this potentially lifesaving technology to complement the essential clinical work they’re doing every day."

This collaboration has led to the development of a capability called CKDx, which analyzes billions of data points to recognize novel correlations and provide clear, insightful recommendations to clinicians. In addition to supplying diagnostic recommendations, CKDx will predict hospitalizations and future cardio-renal complications using biomarkers recorded in patient records. Retrospective experiments have demonstrated that this technology has the ability to identify more than 50% of undiagnosed Stage 3 (or later) kidney disease patients.

“Many healthcare systems are talking about AI and how it can be used to improve care; Hackensack Meridian Health has been at the forefront of this movement,” said Kanishka Rao, Co-Founder and COO of Carenostics. "Our partnership allows us to bring Artificial intelligence into clinical practice and their workflows, to support physicians and ultimately improve patient outcomes.”

The Carenostics team has been working closely with clinical and technical team members from Hackensack Meridian Health to launch and maintain this partnership; Dr. Thomas Salazer, Chief of Nephrology at Hackensack University Medical Center and Dr. Suelyn Boucree are the clinical champions for the initiative.

The partnership between Hackensack Meridian Health and Carenostics has been in place for less than a year, and the teams are already working towards expanding to additional therapeutic areas such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and heart failure. This collaboration was one of just six projects recognized for this year's Bio-IT World award. Kash Patel, Kanishka Rao, and Carenostics Co-Founder and CEO Bharat Rao accepted the award on behalf of Hackensack Meridian Health and Carenostics at the Bio-IT World Conference and Expo in Boston on May 16, 2023.