The UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center is a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer center, integral to the academic health system of UC San Diego. It provides a full spectrum of oncology services—from prevention and diagnosis to treatment, survivorship care, and palliative support—while serving as a central hub for groundbreaking clinical and translational research. With over 500 employees, it operates at a scale that generates vast amounts of complex, multimodal patient data, including electronic health records (EHRs), genomic sequencing, medical imaging, and outcomes data from clinical trials.

Why AI matters at this scale

For a large academic cancer center, AI is not a futuristic concept but a necessary tool to manage complexity and accelerate mission-critical goals. At a size of 501-1000 employees and an estimated annual revenue approaching three-quarters of a billion dollars, the center faces immense pressure to improve operational efficiency, patient throughput, and research productivity. The volume and variety of data it produces are beyond human-scale analysis. AI offers the only viable path to personalize cancer care at scale, extract insights from its rich data assets, and maintain its competitive edge as a top-tier research institution. Failure to adopt strategic AI could mean slower trial enrollment, missed diagnostic insights, operational inefficiencies, and ultimately, a diminished ability to deliver on its promise of cutting-edge care.

Concrete AI Opportunities with ROI

1. Clinical Trial Matching & Recruitment: Manually screening thousands of EHRs for trial eligibility is slow and error-prone. An AI-powered system can parse structured and unstructured clinical data in real-time, matching patient profiles to complex trial criteria. The ROI is direct: faster enrollment speeds trial completion, brings in more research revenue, and gives patients earlier access to novel therapies. For an NCI center running hundreds of trials, this can translate to millions in accelerated grant funding and industry partnerships.

2. Automated Medical Image Analysis: Radiation oncology requires precise contouring of tumors and healthy organs on CT/MRI scans, a tedious process taking hours per patient. Deep learning models can perform this segmentation in minutes with high accuracy. The ROI includes freeing up specialist time for more patient care, increasing treatment planning capacity, reducing burnout, and potentially improving outcomes through more consistent targeting.

3. Predictive Operational Analytics: Patient flow in a large cancer center is highly variable, leading to bottlenecks in infusion suites, imaging, and clinic schedules. AI models forecasting daily demand for key resources allow for proactive staff and room scheduling. The ROI is measured in increased patient satisfaction (reduced wait times), higher utilization of expensive equipment and spaces, and optimized labor costs, directly impacting the bottom line of a high-fixed-cost operation.

Deployment Risks for a 500+ Employee Center

Implementing AI at this scale presents unique challenges. Integration Complexity: Embedding AI tools into entrenched clinical workflows and legacy systems like the Epic EHR requires significant IT coordination and can disrupt care if not managed carefully. Change Management: Gaining buy-in from a large, diverse workforce of clinicians, researchers, and administrators necessitates extensive training and clear communication of benefits to overcome skepticism. Governance at Scale: Establishing robust, centralized oversight for AI model validation, monitoring for drift, and ensuring compliance with HIPAA and other regulations becomes a major administrative undertaking, requiring dedicated committees and possibly new hires like a Chief AI Officer. Equity and Bias: The center's AI models must be rigorously audited to ensure they perform equitably across the diverse Southern California population it serves, lest they perpetuate or amplify existing healthcare disparities, damaging trust and inviting regulatory scrutiny.