Dr. Dligach Receives NIH/NIDA Funding to Develop AI Tools for Substance Use Disorder Treatment

The Department of Computer Science is pleased to announce that Dr. Dmitriy Dligach is part of a research team that has received a Notice of Award from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH/NIDA) for a project titled "Artificial Intelligence Augmentation to Guide Clinicians in Hospital-Based Treatment of Substance Use Disorders." The grant is led by Principal Investigator Dr. Majid Afshar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Loyola's share of the award totals $639,690 over four years.

The project will develop AI tools, built on large language models and trained on electronic health record data, to help clinicians identify and treat patients with substance use disorders and reduce stigmatizing language in clinical documentation. This is a collaborative, multi-site effort with researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Loyola's Health Sciences Campus, including Dr. Cara Joyce and Dr. Talar Markossian.

The grant includes funding to support a Computer Science PhD student, and Dr. Dligach will begin recruiting for the position soon.