Houston Methodist and Rice University's New Digital Health Institute Showcases Its Transformative Mission

Houston Methodist and Rice University formally launched the Houston Methodist–Rice Digital Health Institute (DHI) with an all-day event at Rice University's Duncan Hall on Oct. 8. The gathering brought together clinicians, engineers, industry partners and venture capital leaders to showcase how the institute will drive real-world health care transformation.

The launch underscored the institutions' shared vision to serve as a translational engine for an industry where data, artificial intelligence, engineering and medicine converge. With Houston Methodist's clinical and research depth and Rice's engineering and AI expertise, the DHI aims to bridge the gap between discovery and implementation — ensuring that promising digital health innovations have an opportunity to demonstrate their real-world value.

The program featured remarks from Houston Methodist Academic Institute President and CEO Dr. Jenny Chang, Rice University Provost and Executive Vice President Amy Dittmar, Ph.D., and DHI Co-Directors Dr. Khurram Nasir and Ashutosh Sabharwal, Ph.D.

Preview sessions featured DHI projects already underway, from AI-driven cardiovascular screening tools to digital twin models for community health, while panel discussions from Houston Methodist researchers, Rice University engineers, industry partners and venture capital experts explored the implications of real-world development. Click here to view Dr. Nasir's appearance on "Hello Houston" discussing the impact of the DHI.

Dr. Nasir, who also serves as chief of Cardiovascular Prevention and Wellness at Houston Methodist, sat down with Leading Medicine prior to the event to discuss the unique vision and mission of the Digital Health Institute, how the research development platform works and why the time is right to launch a program dedicated to advancing digital health initiatives.

Q: Why launch the Digital Health Institute now?

Dr. Nasir: The institute was launched at a pivotal moment. We're witnessing a proliferation of data and new technologies, but adoption in real-world settings hasn't kept pace. Our mission is to bridge that gap. By combining Houston Methodist's clinical and operational infrastructure with Rice's engineering and computing strengths, we can move ideas quickly from labs and papers into patient care, community settings and scalable programs.

We want innovation to be routine, not exceptional. That means building workflows for data capture, access, discovery and implementation — and developing real-world evidence pipelines. Equally important is training hybrid leaders: clinicians who understand AI and engineers who understand medicine.

Q: How is the DHI different from tech startups or Silicon Valley innovation hubs?

Dr. Nasir: Many digital health tools are developed in isolation, without input from the people who use them — the physicians, patients and health systems they're intended for. That's why adoption rates remain low despite thousands of FDA-approved tools. At the DHI, we bring together frontline clinicians, technicians, engineers, operational leaders and commercialization experts under one roof. It makes innovation more intentional, more grounded in reality and, ultimately, more likely to succeed.

This is not just about publishing papers. It's about changing lives, reducing costs and improving outcomes at scale. We want to showcase a national model of how health systems and universities can co-create value.

Q: What kinds of projects are already underway?

Dr. Nasir: We have about 20 active cross-disciplinary projects at the moment. For example, one team is developing AI models to detect plaque buildup in arteries from routine ECGs — a breakthrough that could make cardiovascular disease detection and prevention significantly more accessible worldwide. Another project is building a citywide "digital twin" of Houston to map environmental exposures, like heat and air pollution, against health outcomes to guide interventions in underserved neighborhoods.

We're also advancing nanosensors for heart failure monitoring, machine learning tools to personalize diabetes risk, and collaborations to explore vascular pathways in dementia. These are practical, scalable solutions — the kind that can move quickly into clinics and communities.

Q: How is the DHI using artificial intelligence and related technology to enhance precision medicine and personalize care?

Dr. Nasir: We recently published a big article in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that used unsupervised machine learning to identify several unique patient phenoclusters of high prognostic relevance in aortic regurgitation.

In addition to the expected findings, the model identified a female-predominant cluster with fewer signs of dramatic heart remodeling yet high mortality rates and lower referral rates for valve replacement. This is a good example of unsupervised algorithms identifying connections and patterns that human clinicians either haven't been paying attention to or haven't been able to detect. It's easy to see how this knowledge can immediately be put to use, for instance, in reexamining our referral thresholds for women to ensure they are not being undertreated for AR.

Another project we're working on is improving the management of heart failure with advanced wearables and nanosensors. If we are able to detect subtle shifts in respiratory rates, body fluids or mobility, we can often prevent hospitalization and infection, enhancing life expectancy and quality of life. One of our research superstars Dr. Sadeer Al-Kindi is working with Rice engineers to develop ways to passively collect critical physiological signals and send alerts when something goes awry. Same thing with diabetes and metabolic syndrome, we're developing similar tools for that.

Enhancing our ability to predict risk is key. Even modest gains in prediction can change practice, and with heart disease being the number one cause of mortality, that translates into better care for thousands or even millions of people.

Q: What role does training play in the institute's mission?

Dr. Nasir: Training is central, not peripheral. We're creating cross-disciplinary fellowships, research tracks and pilot experiences to prepare the next generation of leaders. Physicians and engineers are embedded in each other's worlds. We're not only building solutions, but building people who can carry this movement forward.

Q: What was the significance of the recent DHI launch event?

Dr. Nasir: We announced the formation of the DHI late in 2024, but this was our first major public milestone.

We shared the infrastructure we've built — from data access pipelines to prototyping and grant support — and highlighted several active projects. Importantly, it was also about inviting others in. We want cardiologists, neurologists, diagnosticians, primary care physicians, nurses, engineers, public health experts, and especially early-career faculty and fellows, to see how they can plug in and get involved in this type of research. We want to show them the value of advancing innovation in their work.

Beyond academia, we engaged industry and venture capital voices to align innovation with pathways for adoption and scale. Ultimately, Oct. 8 was our step out of "stealth mode" into visibility and accountability. We're ready to deliver and to partner, in Houston and beyond.

Q: What's the long-term vision for the program?

Dr. Nasir: We hope the DHI becomes not just a place, but a movement. Five to 10 years from now, success for the Digital Health Institute means we're no longer talking about digital health as a separate category, it's simply how care is delivered. Seamless. Personalized. Preventive. Equitable. Success will also mean we've trained hundreds of fellows, launched dozens of digital health solutions and created a playbook that others can adopt. Our goal is to shorten the distance from lab insight to bedside impact. By embedding equity, scalability and workforce training into our mission, we aim to ensure that innovation benefits not just the well-resourced but also the most vulnerable.