Seeking EU partners: AI-based clinical decision support in pediatric critical care (NAFIS, Hacettepe University)

NAFIS is an early-stage initiative based at the Hacettepe University Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) in Ankara, Turkiye. The unit treats 500 to 700 patients a year across extracorporeal therapies such as ECMO, continuous renal replacement therapy and therapeutic plasma exchange, and has worked in this field for four decades. The name references Ibn al-Nafis, the physician who first described pulmonary circulation.

Building on this clinical base, we are developing three research directions: early-warning models for clinical deterioration in critical care, patient-specific digital twin approaches, and tools to improve the structure and quality of clinical documentation in Turkish. These directions align with Horizon Europe's Health and Digital and Industry clusters, particularly around AI-based clinical decision support and virtual human twins.

We are looking for European university, research institute or clinical partners to help shape a joint Horizon Europe proposal in this space. We are especially interested in hearing from groups already working on similar problems in other clinical or national contexts, so that any collaboration builds on complementary strengths rather than overlapping effort.