Case Study: AI MULTIPLY

Healthcare research: Understanding how taking lots of different medicine impacts patients 

What is the project? 

The AI-MULTIPLY project is a five-year research study looking at the impact of taking lots of different medicine on patients under the age of 65. It is bringing together patients, healthcare experts, and researchers to find ways to improve treatment for people with more than one long-term health condition. 

A long-term health condition is when a patient has an illness that needs to be managed but can’t be cured. This includes conditions like diabetes, asthma, arthritis or high blood pressure. Lots of people live with more than one of these conditions and they will be treated with different medicines. These medicines can interact with one another which can sometimes make the patient’s health worse or more difficult to manage.

Healthcare researchers in the AI-MULTIPLY project want to understand this more. Although people in the over 65 age group are often studied, there has been less research on younger adults where it is estimated that 20% of 25-64 year olds are living with more than one long-term condition.

How AI is improving healthcare

Being able to access information from patient’s healthcare records helps researchers understand more about what happens to these patients. The AI-MULTIPLY project has been given access to key information from patient records where they fit the characteristics they are looking to study.

The patient’s name and other personal details are removed. Researchers then access health information in a Secure Data Environment which has been linked together from different places including the patient’s GP practice, hospital and mental health services.   

Using advanced artificial intelligence tools helps the researchers to study patterns in health data. The insights from this examine how conditions and treatments are connected. For example, we hope to be able to show how different conditions occur together, or how they may lead on to the development of further conditions and how specific medicines might prevent or contribute to these developments. We can also see how these associations and treatment outcomes may depend on social deprivation, ethnicity or other individual circumstances. This work aims to make future care more personalised and reduce health inequalities (due to socioeconomic position, gender, age and ethnicity) by improving access to safe and effective treatment options.

The project is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). As with lots of research projects, AI-MULTIPLY brings together people from different organisations who are working together. They include: 

Importantly, the research team is also working with community groups in areas where people often face higher health challenges. During the development of this research, the team spoke to patients from underserved, socio-economically disadvantaged, and ethnic minority communities in the North East and in East London. An active and diverse Patient and Public Involvement (PPIE) Group meets regularly, and members are involved in all aspects of the research.  

What’s Next?

As the project grows, the AI tools will become even better at finding health patterns. These patterns will help doctors and researchers create more precise treatments based on each patient’s unique needs. 

The project is expected to benefit patients by: 

Through AI-MULTIPLY, your health data plays an essential role in shaping future treatments that are safer, more effective, and tailored to the needs of people like you.