Current Research and Scholarly Interests
Dr. Karen G. Hirsch cares for critically ill patients with neurologic disorders in the intensive care unit. Dr. Hirsch's research focuses on using continuous and discrete multi-modal data to develop phenotypes and identify signatures of treatment responsiveness in patients with coma after cardiac arrest. She is the Co-PI of PRECICECAP (PRecision Care In Cardiac ArrEst - ICECAP, NINDS R01 NS119825-01) and works closely with collaborators in data science at Stanford and with industry partners to apply machine learning analyses to the complex multi-modal ICU data. Dr. Hirsch also studies neuro-imaging in post-cardiac arrest coma and traumatic brain injury.
Additional research interests include a broad array of topics and Dr. Hirsch greatly appreciates the importance of team science and collaboration. Along with colleagues in Biomedical Ethics, Dr. Hirsch studies brain death and organ donation with a focus on ethical challenges and prediction models. Along with colleagues in Cardiac Anesthesia and Cardiothoracic Surgery, Dr. Hirsch studies neurologic outcomes in patients on mechanical circulatory support including ECMO.
Dr. Hirsch is broadly interested in improving neurologic outcomes after acute brain injury and identifying early phenotypes to guide precision medicine in neurocritical care, especially in patients with post-cardiac arrest brain injury.