CADDI Lab

Clinical Automation & Data Driven Insights


Who We Are

About the CADDI Lab

The Clinical Automation & Data Driven Insights (CADDI) Lab at UCSF leverages clinical data, automation, and machine learning to improve patient care, clinical workflows, and operational efficiency in radiation oncology. We sit at the intersection of clinical practice and cutting-edge computational research.

Bridging Disciplines

We unite clinical practice, data science, and software engineering, translating research directly into deployed clinical tools.

Our Approach

We follow an iterative, clinician-in-the-loop development process, moving from raw clinical data to validated models to deployed tools that live inside real workflows.

Research Portfolio

Four Core Research Themes

The CADDI Lab organizes its research around four interconnected themes, each combining rigorous investigation, clinical deployment, and measurable impact. Together, they form a cohesive vision for the future of radiation oncology.

AI for Quality Assurance

Machine learning models stratify plan complexity and predict patient-specific QA outcomes, enabling smarter and more efficient quality assurance in radiation therapy, and reducing reliance on time-intensive physical measurements.

Predictive Models

Identify high-risk treatment plans before delivery

IQA Platform

Intelligent QA platform serves as clinical decision support system

Clinical Validation

Prospective studies confirming clinical accuracy

Reduce Unnecessary QA

Focus resources on the cases that truly need attention, not routine checks.

Improve Patient Safety

Catch high-risk plans proactively before they reach the treatment room.

Visualize Complexity

Compare complexity to thousands of past treatment plans to understand drivers of risk of QA failure.

Clinical Automation & Quality

Our commitment to patient safety and treatment excellence drives our innovations in clinical automation. The CADDI Lab develops tools that streamline workflows, ensure consistency, and enhance the quality of radiation therapy planning and delivery.

SafePlan

Developed by Dr Evan Porter, automated treatment plan verification at multiple workflow hand-off points to identify potential risks and deviations from quality standards before treatment begins.

Scripting Workflows

Custom-built scripts automate routine tasks, reducing manual effort, standardizing processes, and minimizing human error for improved efficiency.

Plan Comparison Tools

Advanced tools visualize and compare dose distributions and organ-at-risk sparing across multiple treatment plans, empowering clinicians to make optimal treatment decisions.


Operational Informatics & Data Insights

Raw clinical data holds untapped potential. The CADDI Lab transforms data from Epic, oncology information systems, and departmental sources into real-time dashboards and actionable intelligence, empowering leadership and clinical teams to make decisions grounded in evidence.

Key Platforms & Projects

Treatment Planning Dashboards

Visual workflow analytics covering planning throughput, bottlenecks, and resource utilization.

Quality & Accreditation Tracking

Automated systems ensuring compliance metrics and department KPIs are captured and reported in real time.

Patient Pipeline

A live whiteboard showing where each patient sits in the treatment workflow, surfacing which tasks are overdue, who is at risk of delay, and where bottlenecks are forming.

Technical Capabilities

SQL-Based Data Pipelines

Robust integration with Epic and oncology information systems for structured data extraction.

Tableau Dashboards

Intuitive, interactive visualizations deployed across the department for clinical and operational use.

Email Alert System

Automated notifications that flag when tasks become available or are completed, keeping the care team informed and accountable without manual follow-up.


Big Data & Research Infrastructure

The CADDI Lab builds scalable, reproducible data ecosystems that bridge the gap between clinical operations and translational research, enabling multi-institution collaboration and large-scale analytics that were previously out of reach.

RADAR Platform

A self-service research data platform empowering investigators to access and analyze structured clinical data independently.

BigROC Consortium

Multi-institutional collaboration enabling pooled dataset analysis across leading radiation oncology centers, with harmonized data models for reproducible findings.

O3 Data Standards

Adoption and development of oncology data models (O3) to standardize data representation across systems, sites, and studies.

Our People

The CADDI Lab Team

Alon Witztum, DPhil

Lab Director

Associate Professor and Director of Reporting & Analytics at UCSF Radiation Oncology. Dr. Witztum leads the lab's research agenda, clinical deployments, and academic partnerships, combining deep clinical expertise with a passion for computational innovation.

Clinical Collaborators

The lab works in close partnership with clinical faculty, medical physicists, and data scientists across UCSF Radiation Oncology, ensuring every tool is informed by frontline clinical experience and operational realities.

Students & Trainees

The CADDI Lab actively mentors UCSF and USF students, physics residents, and research trainees.

Join Us

Open Positions

The CADDI Lab is seeking motivated, technically skilled trainees eager to work on problems that matter — real clinical systems, real data, and real impact. We offer a unique environment where research directly shapes patient care.

Research Intern — Clinical Automation

Join a team building and deploying automation tools in live radiation oncology workflows at UCSF.

  • Strong Python programming skills required
  • Experience with SQL preferred
  • Interest in healthcare systems, error prevention, and clinical informatics
  • Opportunity to contribute to deployed clinical tools and peer-reviewed publications

Research Intern — General

A broader research internship spanning the lab's full portfolio — ideal for those wanting exposure to multiple domains of clinical AI and data science in oncology.

  • Work across AI, automation, and data-driven healthcare
  • Access to real clinical datasets and systems
  • Mentorship from faculty, physicists, and data scientists
  • Open to health informatics, computer science, and physics backgrounds

Get Involved

Collaborations & Contact

The CADDI Lab actively seeks partnerships across academia, industry, and clinical institutions. Whether you are a researcher exploring data collaboration, an organization with clinical deployment opportunities, or an institution looking to bring automation tools to your radiation oncology program - we want to hear from you.

Academic Collaborations

Partnerships with UCSF Radiation Oncology, the University of San Francisco Health Informatics Program, and national and international research collaborators including BigROC consortium members.

Industry Partnerships

We welcome engagement with companies seeking to validate, co-develop, or clinically deploy AI and automation tools in radiation oncology settings.

Clinical Deployment

Institutions interested in adapting CADDI Lab tools for their own clinical environments are encouraged to reach out.

📍 CADDI Lab, UCSF Mission Bay

1825 4th Street, San Francisco, CA

Contact the Lab