Division of Research study will evaluate agentic AI solutions to equitably improve quality of care
Kaiser Permanente researchers will receive up to $16 million, over 3 years, from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to evaluate how agentic artificial intelligence (AI) solutions can be responsibly integrated into routine clinical care to improve treatment decisions and outcomes for adults with heart failure.
The project is being led by Ankeet Bhatt, MD, MBA, ScM, a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research (DOR) and a cardiologist with The Permanente Medical Group (TPMG). It will be the first and largest systematically conducted randomized assessment of agentic AI for heart failure care in the U.S.
“Patients with heart failure are some of the most medically complex and high-risk patients we care for each day,” said Bhatt. “Fortunately, there are several treatments that can improve and lengthen the lives of patients living with heart failure, and we want to get these therapies to patients as early as possible. This research will allow us to investigate whether agentic AI solutions, which can be trained to evaluate a situation and make complex decisions, can close care gaps for patients with heart failure in ways that are supported by the best available evidence.”
ARPA-H is a U.S. federal funding agency that supports the development of high-impact solutions to society’s most challenging health problems. The projects they fund have the potential to deliver health breakthroughs quickly — in just a few years, rather than decades. This specific award is funded through the ARPA-H ADVOCATE program, which challenged researchers nationwide to develop an agentic AI solution that could provide safe and effective heart failure care.
“Our large, diverse membership and unique integrated care system make it possible for us to conduct this type of large study in a 3-year time period,” said co-PI, Alan Go, MD, DOR Associate Director and head of the Cardiovascular, Kidney, and Metabolic Health Research Section. “This speed is of necessity. The population of adults with heart failure is growing nationally, and there are opportunities within and outside of Kaiser Permanente to initiate and optimize the use of multiple medications to reduce complications in this patient population. If we find agentic AI can responsibly help patients and clinicians quickly evaluate options, hundreds of thousands of patients could potentially benefit from our work.”
The first phase of the study will focus on identifying, testing, and evaluating agentic AI solutions using existing electronic health record data from Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC). In the second phase, the researchers will integrate agentic AI solutions found to accurately suggest possible treatment options for patients with heart failure into KPNC care workflows, with appropriate cardiologist oversight.
The third and final phase of the research will involve a pilot study, followed by a randomized trial, that will enroll about 2,500 patients in up to 21 KPNC medical centers. Half the patients and their treating physicians will receive assistance from the agentic AI solution for treatment decision making; the other half will receive routine care supported by standard decision-making tools, allowing the investigators to test the incremental value of agentic AI-supported care.
The investigators will also develop a national playbook on how to rigorously implement and safely evaluate AI in health care settings. “As AI technologies become increasingly sophisticated, it is critical that we evaluate them in real-world clinical settings with the same rigor we would apply to any new medical intervention,” said co-PI Vincent Liu, MD, chief data officer for TPMG and a DOR research scientist. “This work involves partnerships with our institutional IT teams, AI Councils, expert clinicians, patient representatives, and external AI technology stakeholders, all of whom will support a systematic evaluation of the selected agentic AI solutions before they are considered for more widespread implementation in clinical care.”
“This award reflects the strength of our Division of Research and Kaiser Permanente’s commitment to pursuing new and creative solutions to some of our greatest health challenges,” said Maria Ansari, MD, CEO and executive director of TPMG. “As a cardiologist, I know how important it is for patients with heart failure to receive the right care at the right time, and how much that can shape both outcomes and quality of life. This study gives us an opportunity to determine whether agentic AI can be evaluated rigorously and deployed safely, equitably, and responsibly to support better outcomes for patients living with heart failure.”
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About the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research
The Kaiser Permanente Division of Research conducts, publishes, and disseminates epidemiologic and health services research to improve the health and medical care of Kaiser Permanente members and society at large. KPDOR seeks to understand the determinants of illness and well-being and to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care. Currently, DOR’s 720-plus staff, including 73 research and staff scientists, are working on nearly 630 epidemiological and health services research projects. For more information, visit divisionofresearch.kp.org.
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