Research Summary

Dr. Hong is Assistant Professor and Medical Director of Radiation Oncology Informatics in the Department of Radiation Oncology and the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, and in the UCSF-UC Berkeley Joint Program in Computational Precision Health. Clinically, he specializes in the treatment of genitourinary malignancies.

Dr. Hong’s research program focuses on the development and implementation of computational tools in the clinic to provide personalized, precision cancer care for patients. His group combines clinical domain knowledge with data science expertise to generate insights from real world data, develop actionable artificial intelligence-based tools, and evaluate the benefit of these advances in patient care. He led one of the first randomized controlled studies of clinical machine learning, developing an electronic health record-based algorithm that accurately directed care to reduce emergency visits and hospitalizations during radiotherapy.

Dr. Hong received his B.S. in Biomedical Computation and M.S. in Bioengineering from Stanford University. He completed medical school at the University of Wisconsin and residency in radiation oncology at Duke University, where he served as Chief Resident. Dr. Hong serves on the NRG Cancer Care Delivery Research Committee and is an American Society of Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) representative for the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Big Data Subcommittee. He is a member of the Minimal Common Oncology Data Elements (mCODE) Council, the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Annual Symposium and Informatics Summit Scientific Program Committees, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) CancerLinQ Leadership Council.

Dr. Hong’s research has been published in high-impact, peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology and JAMA Oncology. His work has been recognized with the Radiation Oncology Institute (ROI) Publication Award, Bio-IT World Innovative Practices Award, and the Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Learning Health Systems New England Journal of Medicine Travel Award.

Research Funding

  • July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2024 - Accessible and equitable computational approaches to reduce acute care for cancer patients , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: Conquer Cancer, Sponsor Award ID: Career Development Grant
  • July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2024 - Artificial intelligence approaches for the diagnosis and treatment of oligometastatic prostate cancer , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: ASTRO-PCF, Sponsor Award ID: Career Development Award to End Prostate Cancer
  • September 1, 2021 - February 28, 2023 - Artificial intelligence approaches to reduce disparities in supportive care during cancer therapy , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: UCSF, Sponsor Award ID: Computational Cancer Award
  • July 1, 2020 - June 30, 2022 - Reducing preventable ED visits and hospitalizations in patients with cancer , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: UCSF, Sponsor Award ID: Precision Medicine Cancer Building Award

Education

Stanford University, Stanford, CA, BS, 06/2008, Biomedical Computation
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, MS, 06/2009, Bioengineering
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, MD, 05/2014, Medicine
Yale-New Haven Medical Center, New Haven/Waterbury, CT, Internship, 06/2015, Internal Medicine
Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, Residency, 06/2019, Radiation Oncology

Honors & Awards

  • 2020
    New England Journal of Medicine Travel Scholarship, Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Learning Health Systems
  • 2018
    3rd Place, Google Kaggle NCAA March Madness Machine Learning Competition
  • 2014
    Dylan Cappel Memorial Scholarship in Oncology, University of Wisconsin
  • 2012
    Herman and Gwendolyn Shapiro Excellence in Student Research Award, University of Wisconsin
  • 2011
    Excellence in Radiology Research Award, National Student Research Forum
  • 2009
    Excellence in Science Award, American Association for the Advancement of Science

Selected Publications

  1. Hong JC, Eclov NCW, Stephens SJ, Mowery YM, Palta M. Implementation of machine learning in the clinic: challenges and lessons in prospective deployment from the System for High Intensity EvaLuation During Radiation Therapy (SHIELD-RT) randomized controlled study. BMC Bioinformatics. 2022 Sep 30; 23(Suppl 12):408.  View on PubMed
  2. Zack T, Dhaliwal G, Geha R, Margaretten M, Murray S, Hong JC. A Clinical Reasoning-Encoded Case Library Developed through Natural Language Processing. J Gen Intern Med. 2022 Sep 07.  View on PubMed
  3. Borno HT, Kim MO, Hong JC, Yousefi S, Lin A, Tolstykh I, Zhang S, McKay RR, Harismendy O, Cinar P, Rugo H, Koshkin VS, Rabow M, Wang C, Bailey A, Small EJ. COVID-19 Outcomes Among Patients With Cancer: Observations From the University of California Cancer Consortium COVID-19 Project Outcomes Registry. Oncologist. 2022 05 06; 27(5):398-406.  View on PubMed
  4. Huilgol YS, Adler-Milstein J, Ivey SL, Hong JC. Opportunities to use electronic health record audit logs to improve cancer care. Cancer Med. 2022 Sep; 11(17):3296-3303.  View on PubMed
  5. Kwon DH, Cadena J, Nguyen S, Chan KHR, Soper B, Gryshuk AL, Hong JC, Ray P, Huang FW. COVID-19 outcomes in patients with cancer: Findings from the University of California health system database. Cancer Med. 2022 06; 11(11):2204-2215.  View on PubMed
  6. Hong JC. Strategies to Turn Real-world Data Into Real-world Knowledge. JAMA Netw Open. 2021 10 01; 4(10):e2128045.  View on PubMed
  7. Chen WC, Boreta L, Braunstein SE, Rabow MW, Kaplan LE, Tenenbaum JD, Morin O, Park CC, Hong JC. Association of mental health diagnosis with race and all-cause mortality after a cancer diagnosis: Large-scale analysis of electronic health record data. Cancer. 2022 01 15; 128(2):344-352.  View on PubMed
  8. Morin O, Vallières M, Braunstein S, Ginart JB, Upadhaya T, Woodruff HC, Zwanenburg A, Chatterjee A, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Valdes G, Chen W, Hong JC, Yom SS, Solberg TD, Löck S, Seuntjens J, Park C, Lambin P. An artificial intelligence framework integrating longitudinal electronic health records with real-world data enables continuous pan-cancer prognostication. Nat Cancer. 2021 07; 2(7):709-722.  View on PubMed
  9. Hong JC, Butte AJ. Assessing Clinical Outcomes in a Data-Rich World-A Reality Check on Real-World Data. JAMA Netw Open. 2021 07 01; 4(7):e2117826.  View on PubMed
  10. Wu SY, Yee E, Vasudevan HN, Fogh SE, Boreta L, Braunstein SE, Hong JC. Risk Stratification for Imminent Risk of Death at the Time of Palliative Radiotherapy Consultation. JAMA Netw Open. 2021 07 01; 4(7):e2115641.  View on PubMed
  11. Sinha S, Garriga M, Naik N, McSteen BW, Odisho AY, Lin A, Hong JC. Disparities in Electronic Health Record Patient Portal Enrollment Among Oncology Patients. JAMA Oncol. 2021 06 01; 7(6):935-937.  View on PubMed
  12. Hong JC, Hauser ER, Redding TS, Sims KJ, Gellad ZF, O'Leary MC, Hyslop T, Madison AN, Qin X, Weiss D, Bullard AJ, Williams CD, Sullivan BA, Lieberman D, Provenzale D. Characterizing chronological accumulation of comorbidities in healthy veterans: a computational approach. Sci Rep. 2021 04 14; 11(1):8104.  View on PubMed
  13. Garriga M, Feng FY, Lee WR, Hong JC. Early salvage versus adjuvant therapy for treatment of prostate cancer following prostatectomy. BMJ Evid Based Med. 2021 12; 26(6):e8.  View on PubMed
  14. Hong JC, Fairchild AT, Tanksley JP, Palta M, Tenenbaum JD. Natural language processing for abstraction of cancer treatment toxicities: accuracy versus human experts. JAMIA Open. 2020 Dec; 3(4):513-517.  View on PubMed
  15. Kang J, Morin O, Hong JC. Closing the Gap Between Machine Learning and Clinical Cancer Care-First Steps Into a Larger World. JAMA Oncol. 2020 11 01; 6(11):1731-1732.  View on PubMed
  16. Hong JC, Eclov NCW, Dalal NH, Thomas SM, Stephens SJ, Malicki M, Shields S, Cobb A, Mowery YM, Niedzwiecki D, Tenenbaum JD, Palta M. System for High-Intensity Evaluation During Radiation Therapy (SHIELD-RT): A Prospective Randomized Study of Machine Learning-Directed Clinical Evaluations During Radiation and Chemoradiation. J Clin Oncol. 2020 11 01; 38(31):3652-3661.  View on PubMed
  17. Sullivan BA, Redding TS, Hauser ER, Gellad ZF, Qin X, Gupta S, Robertson DJ, Weiss DG, O'Leary MC, Madison AN, Sims KJ, Williams CD, Hong JC, Lieberman D, Provenzale D. High-Risk Adenomas at Screening Colonoscopy Remain Predictive of Future High-Risk Adenomas Despite an Intervening Negative Colonoscopy. Am J Gastroenterol. 2020 08; 115(8):1275-1282.  View on PubMed
  18. Fairchild AT, Tanksley JP, Tenenbaum JD, Palta M, Hong JC. Interrater Reliability in Toxicity Identification: Limitations of Current Standards. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2020 08 01; 107(5):996-1000.  View on PubMed
  19. Spiegel DY, Boyer MJ, Hong JC, Williams CD, Kelley MJ, Salama JK, Palta M. Survival Advantage With Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Locoregionally Advanced Rectal Cancer: A Veterans Health Administration Analysis. J Natl Compr Canc Netw. 2020 01; 18(1):52-58.  View on PubMed
  20. Lafata KJ, Zhou Z, Liu JG, Hong J, Kelsey CR, Yin FF. An Exploratory Radiomics Approach to Quantifying Pulmonary Function in CT Images. Sci Rep. 2019 08 08; 9(1):11509.  View on PubMed

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