Akbar Waljee, MD, MSc, AGAF

Sarah Conner

Dr. Akbar K. Waljee is an accomplished physician-scientist in healthcare policy and innovation, focusing on using machine learning and deep learning techniques to improve healthcare outcomes. He holds several key leadership positions at the University of Michigan, including director of the Data Collaborative Hub (Center for Global Health Equity) as well as a convener for the e-Health and Artificial Intelligence program (e-HAIL). 

Dr. Waljee's educational background includes undergraduate and medical degrees from Emory University, as well as a master’s degree in health services research from the University of Michigan. He also completed a healthcare policy fellowship at the Center for Health and Research Transformation.

Dr. Waljee’s work is aimed at improving healthcare access, quality, and efficiency, particularly in resource-constrained settings. He employs novel machine learning techniques to develop AI-enabled decision support systems and tools to facilitate more personalized care for disease management and healthcare utilization, with the ultimate goal of delivering efficient, effective and equitable care both domestically and globally.

Dr. Waljee uses novel machine learning techniques to implement decision support systems and tools that facilitate more personalized care for disease management and healthcare utilization to ultimately deliver efficient, effective, and equitable therapy for chronic diseases. He has built operational programs that are guiding—and improving—patient care in costly gastroenterology and liver disorders in under-resourced settings both domestically and internationally.

• Access to Care
• Global Health and Health Services
• Health Equity and Disparities in Health and Healthcare
• Health Insurance and Payment/Financing
• Health IT/Health Informatics/Electronic Health Records
• Health Promotion and Prevention
• Healthcare Delivery and Utilization
• Healthcare Quality
• Healthcare Workforce
• Medical Technology
• Organ/Tissue Donation, Allocation, Transplantation

Subject-matter expertise

• Cancer
  • Colorectal Cancer
  • Liver Cancer
• Chronic Illness
• Gastrointestinal Disorders
  • Inflammatory Bowel Disease
• Liver Disease

Selected publications:

• Waljee AK, Rogers MA, Lin P, Singal AG, Stein JD, Marks RM, Ayanian JZ, Nallamothu BK. Short term use of oral corticosteroids and related harms among adults in the United States: population-based cohort study. BMJ. 2017;357:j1415. [PMCID: PMC6284230]. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28404617/
• Waljee AK*, Mukherjee A*, Singal AG, Zhang Y, Warren J, Balis U, Marrero J, Zhu J, Higgins PD. Comparison of imputation methods for missing laboratory data in medicine. BMJ Open. 2013;3(8). pii: e002847. [PMCID: PMC3733317]. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23906948/
• Mahmoudi E, Kamdar N, Kim N, Gonzales G, Singh K, Waljee AK. Use of electronic medical records in development and validation of risk prediction models of hospital readmission: systematic review. BMJ. 2020; Apr 8;369:m958. [PMID: 32269037]. https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m958

A list of all publications can be found here.