New Center Led by Drs. Adam Rodman and Gabriel Brat will Advance and Rigorously Evaluate Artificial Intelligence from the Clinic to the Operating Room
October 22, 2026. Boston, MA – Beth Israel Lahey Health (BILH) today announced the founding of the Center of Surgical and Medical Intelligence within the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Institute for Evidence, Innovation, and Policy. The Center will advance the science and capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine and surgery.
By building unified data systems from the clinic to the operating room, the Center will generate insights across the entire patient journey. This infrastructure will provide benchmarks and tools for collaboration across industry, academia, and government.
The Center is led by Directors Adam Rodman, MD, MPH, a hospitalist within the Division of General Internal Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), and Gabriel Brat, MD, MScPH, a trauma surgeon and intensive care physician within the Department of Surgery, BIDMC. Both are national leaders in clinical AI.
The Center will serve as an interdisciplinary hub for clinical AI research across BILH, strengthening the system’s position as a national and global leader in this rapidly evolving field. Researchers from BIDMC and Lahey Clinic will be instrumental to the Center’s efforts.
“AI increasingly touches all aspects of medical care and involves close collaboration not only between physicians and surgeons, but also with computer scientists, social scientists, IT, compliance, and ethics experts,” said Dr. Rodman. “The Smith Institute brings together more than 60 faculty, visiting scientists, statisticians, staff and fellows with diverse perspectives to push the frontiers of clinical AI in a way that none of us individually could have accomplished.”
“AI systems are going to succeed or fail based on the quality of our data. At BILH, we have a 30-year history of leveraging our data to improve patients’ lives. We are bringing together the huge amount of information that is generated during the clinical experience—but is often discarded—to build the reality layer for the AI age,” said Dr. Brat.
A major focus of the Center will be to align AI efforts across the BILH system.
“We are committed to the safe and responsible use of AI and empowering our clinicians to adopt innovative technologies,” said Peter Shorett, senior executive vice president and chief operating officer, BILH. “The launch of our new AI-focused center marks an exciting next chapter, creating opportunities to responsibly advance innovation and improve care for the patients and communities we serve.”
As AI systems become increasingly capable, clinicians and health systems will require rigorous evidence about safety, effectiveness, and impact. The Center will draw on the Smith Institute’s expertise in the real-world evaluation of medical technologies, clinical trials, and health policy to help answer these questions. “If we want AI to transform healthcare for the better, we need to be able to study it with the rigor that medicine requires,” said Dr. Rodman, who recently published the first pre-registered study of a patient-facing AI system in The Lancet. “We have a track record of studying these technologies, and we feel BILH is the best place in the world to study innovative technologies safely and ethically.”
“AI has the potential to transform how we diagnose disease, deliver treatment, and care for patients. Realizing that potential will require knowing what works, for whom, and at what cost,” said Smith Institute Director Rishi K. Wadhera, MD, MPP, MPhil and Executive Chair Robert W. Yeh, MD MSc, MBA. “Those questions have guided the Smith Institute’s work for a decade, and we are delighted that Dr. Brat and Dr. Rodman are joining us to build a Center devoted to using AI to improve the care and lives of patients.”
About Beth Israel Lahey Health
Beth Israel Lahey Health is a healthcare system that brings together academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, community and specialty hospitals, more than 6,300 physicians and 36,000 employees in a shared mission to expand access to great care and advance the science and practice of medicine through groundbreaking research and education.
View Press Release source here: https://bilh.org/about/news-and-stories/all-news-and-stories/news/2026/10/bilh-announces-center-surgical-medical-intelligence