Research Day 2026 · DOCWARE Study · DUTS Health
Catch chronic disease before it arrives.
The DOCWARE study evaluates Dr. Ware, a physician-in-the-loop clinical decision support system that reads a patient’s wearable data alongside their health record and flags rising risk of preventable chronic disease. It is built for rural Alberta, where the next clinic visit can be a two-hour drive away.
Dr. Ware is a research prototype. It is not a licensed medical device and is not used for clinical care. The model on this page is an illustration with made-up weights.
Research question
In a rural population, can wearable + EHR data accurately predict who is heading toward chronic disease?
Hypothesis: a glass-box machine learning system that fuses continuous wearable signals with episodic clinical records will accurately predict which primary care patients are at risk of developing a chronic disease, and show whether an existing condition is being managed well.
How it works
Six steps from wrist to physician
Each layer can be audited on its own. Tap a step.
Try the model
What a glass-box prediction looks like
Dr. Ware uses Explainable Boosting Machines: every feature gets its own readable curve, and the prediction is the sum of those curves. Move the sliders and watch each feature push risk up or down. Tap a feature to see its curve.
Estimated 5-year risk
Why: contribution of each feature (log-odds)
Illustrative only. The curves and weights are invented to show how an EBM explains itself. Real models will be trained on paired datasets (e.g. UK Biobank, NHANES, All of Us) and reported to TRIPOD+AI standards.
Timeline
From a pitch deck to a Grande Prairie pilot
Past milestones and the planned study phases. Future durations depend on ethics approval, data-access agreements, team recruitment and hardware.
Join the team
Who I’m looking for
The core team covers research, development and coordination. These are the gaps. Tap “I’m interested” on any role and it gets added to your note in the Connect section.
What you get. Contributions are currently volunteer. Everyone who contributes is credited on study outputs (abstracts, posters, manuscripts, one per disease model), and paying the team is the first priority as funding arrives. You also get real experience taking a clinical AI tool through ethics, validation and a pilot.
Funding
What it costs to reach a working pilot
Development plus a 12-month pilot in 1–2 clinics. Toggle between the lean plan (tight scope, minimal stipends) and the healthy plan (room to do it properly and pay contributors).
Monthly operating burn during a pilot is about $1,200 (cloud, SaaS, compliance tools, accounting).
Ethics and limitations
Questions I expect you to ask
Does my doctor see everything my watch records?
No. Granular wearable data stays with the model. The physician sees the prediction, its explanation and the guideline comparison, not a minute-by-minute log of your day.
Where does the data go?
Data is stored and processed locally, in the jurisdiction of the health system caring for the patient: on the research team’s machine in pre-clinical phases, in the clinic during the pilot.
Can I leave?
Yes, at any time, through the patient portal. Your data is deleted and the system stops analyzing it. Consent is category-level and revocable.
Do optical sensors work on all skin tones?
Not equally. Most wearables use optical sensors whose accuracy can vary with skin pigmentation. This is a named limitation the validation phase has to measure, not assume away.
What about different watches?
Patients bring their own devices, so sensor quality and algorithms vary. Movement also degrades readings. The model must learn to separate device noise from real physiology.
Who makes the call?
The physician. Dr. Ware proposes, the clinician decides. Black-box models are excluded by design so every flag can be read, questioned and defended.
Connect
Let’s talk
Add your details, tap “Open in my email app”, and hit send. Or just come find me at the poster.
Nicholas Duta
Medical student, Northern Alberta Medical Program · MSc Pharmacology, U of A · Founder & CEO, DUTS Health Inc.
Organization: DUTS Health Inc. (dutshealth.ca), an Alberta-incorporated health-technology company building Dr. Ware.
References