The application of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care could be an opportunity to improve patient care, automate routine administrative functions, and ease the burden on providers and other staff.
But as more and more health care organizations invest in AI technology, there is a critical need to ensure innovative solutions will be effective once deployed in a health care setting.
UPMC Enterprises is addressing that critical need with Ahavi™, a real-world data platform for researchers, scientists, and developers to validate AI solutions. Introduced at the 2025 ViVE digital health care conference, Ahavi provides de-identified real-world health care data sourced from more than 80 UPMC data sources. The platform enables the creation of curated datasets that accelerate research, clinical trial design, and AI development, and offers primary source-verifiable data along with industry-leading analytical tools.
“This is an environment that allows our organization to assess the efficacy of AI models against our patient population prior to ever having to deploy it against our actual population,” Jeff Jones, Senior Vice President of Product Development at UPMC Enterprises told Becker’s Hospital Review.
The platform encompasses comprehensive, structured and unstructured data sourced from 5 million patients across 24 hospitals, allowing for AI model training and refinement in a safe, secure environment.
“By leveraging UPMC’s extensive, high-quality datasets, we help solve some of health care’s biggest challenges — ensuring that AI models, predictive analytics, and clinical decision-making tools are built on trusted, real-world data,” Jones said.
“The use of real-world data ensures that the insights derived are robust and applicable to actual health care settings. By making it easier to access primary-source verified and comprehensive health care data, Ahavi helps ensure that potential investments are backed by strong evidence and actionable insights,” Jones told Health Point.
Ahavi is available to a range of health care partners, including pharmaceutical and biotech companies, AI developers, academic researchers, and hospital systems.
“For organizations who are looking to strategically partner, how can UPMC take insights that are derived from our population to help improve these models? And I think it’s the intersection of companies who are on the precipice of the deployment or creation of new models in patient care that we’re really going to latch on to, so long as those solutions align with the needs of UPMC,” Jones told Fierce Healthcare.
Developed by the Technology Services team at UPMC Enterprises, Ahavi operates as a secure, scalable, and high-performance analytics platform by providing the infrastructure, technical expertise, and compliance safeguards needed to help data scientists, AI developers, and clinical researchers generate actionable insights.
“By combining Ahavi’s analytical power with our technical expertise, we can identify and validate the best opportunities — before they reach the bedside, and without disrupting UPMC’s broader operations. This accelerates innovation while ensuring that every new solution is clinically effective, operationally feasible, and financially sustainable,” Jones said. “Simply put, Ahavi helps us turn data into smarter decisions—so every investment we make leads to better patient care.”
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