Piet de Groen, MD

Administrator Info
Name: GI Division
Phone: 612-625-8999
Email: gidivision@umn.edu
Mail: 420 Delaware Street SE, MMC 36, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Summary
Dr. de Groen is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, at the University of Minnesota, emeritus staff at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and former Program Director of the Mayo Clinic/IBM Computational Biology Collaboration. He is an NIH-funded clinical investigator and international expert in medical informatics, primary liver cancers and colonoscopy.His endoscopic research is focused on measuring what happens during colonoscopy. Together with collaborators at Iowa State University and the University of North Texas he has created a first-of-a-kind new software system that automatically captures and analyzes "inside-the-patient" video information of medical procedures performed via endoscopy. At present he is studying patient- and endoscopist-specific features, including quality of the colon preparation and effort of the endoscopist to visualize mucosa, remove remaining fecal material and adequately distend the colon. Another focus of study is automated measurement of the degree of mucosal inflammation as seen in inflammatory bowel diseases.The ultimate goal of his endoscopic research related to colonoscopy is a fully automated quality control system that provides real-time feedback to the endoscopist and ensures individualized healthcare by virtually guaranteeing a high quality examination for each patient. Another goal is to extend the technology to other organs examined using endoscopy equipment and combine the information obtained from the optical signal with information derived from other imaging modalities.