ANZ News

Although the current study uses only 400 3-D faces, University of Western Australia researchers want to develop a technology that is cheap, easily accessible and reliable.

Sydney Neuroimaging Analysis Centre (SNAC), an Australian company co-located with the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre, is building AI tools to automate laborious analysis tasks in their research workflow, such as isolating brain images from head scans and segmenting brain lesions. Additional algorithms are in development and being validated for clinical use. One compares how a patient’s brain volume and lesions change over time. Another flags critical brain scans, so radiologists can more quickly attend to urgent cases. The researchers develop their algorithms using the NVIDIA Clara suite of medical imaging tools, as well as cuDNN libraries and TensorRT inference software. WHAT’S THE IMPACT SNAC analyses patient MRI and CT scans acquired at clinical sites around the world. With a training dataset of more than 15,000 three-dimensional CT and MRI images, SNAC is building its deep learning algorithms using the PyTorch and TensorFlow frameworks. One of the centre’s AI models automates the time-consuming task of cleaning up MRI images to isolate the brain from other parts of the head, such as the venous sinuses and fluid-filled compartments around the brain. Using the NVIDIA DGX-1 system for inference, SNAC can speed up this process by at least 10x. Using semi-automatic methods, the process would take SNAC’s analysts 20-30 minutes but now it can be reduced to two or three minutes of pure machine time, while performing better and more consistently than a human. Another tool tackles brain lesion analysis for multiple sclerosis cases. In research and clinical trials, image analysts typically segment brain lesions and determine their volume by manually examining scans — a process that takes up to 15 minutes. AI can shrink the time needed to determine lesion volume to just three seconds. That makes it possible for these metrics to be used in clinical practice as well, where due to time constraints, radiologists often simply eyeball scans to estimate lesion volumes. COLLABORATIONS AND FUTURE PLANS The centre collaborates with I-MED, one of the largest imaging providers in the world, as well as the computational neuroscience team at the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre. The group also works closely with radiologists at major Australian hospitals to validate its algorithms.  SNAC plans to integrate its analysis tools with systems already used by clinicians, so that once a scan is taken, it is automatically routed to a server and processed. The AI-evaluated scan is then passed on to radiologists’ viewers — giving them the analysis results without altering their workflow. THE LARGER TREND Also located in Sydney, Macquarie University and Macquarie Medical Imaging has recently partnered with GE Healthcare and Fujitsu Australia to research the ways artificial intelligence can help diagnose and monitor brain aneurysms on scans faster and more efficiently. The university will provide clinical expertise for the development and testing of the technology, which is provided by GE Healthcare, while Fujitsu will lead the initiative. Singapore’s National Neuroscience Institute (NNI) is working with local medtech company specialising in AI and surgical robotics, Iota MedTech to develop a system to sort brain scans of head injury patients in order of urgency, Healthcare IT News reported in May this year. The development of the priority sorting system will help ensure that patients requiring immediate medical attention receive the care they need. ON THE RECORD “We often refer to manual annotation as the gold standard for neuroimaging, when it’s actually probably not,” said Tim Wang, director of operations, SNAC in a statement. “In many cases, AI provides a more consistent, less biased evaluation than manual classification or segmentation.”

The InClinic service will be offered at various Amcal, Guardian and Discount Drug Store pharmacies around the country, and employs Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency registered doctors for video consultations.

By combining clinical and consumer-derived data, such as from mobile phone apps and wearables, the program will offer tailored advice using machine learning to assess participants who have been to the hospital with chest pain.

With more than a decade of experience as a registered nurse, Angela Ryan combines her clinical experience with her knowledge in health informatics toward the practical, meaningful and integrated use of digital health tools in Australia. In this interview with Healthcare IT News, she shares more on her role as the chief clinical information officer (CCIO) at the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) and talks about why the My Health Record is a key pillar in Australia’s National Digital Health Strategy. Q. Could you tell us more about your role as CCIO of ADHA and your background in healthcare? A. In my role as chief clinical information officer at the Australian Digital Health Agency, I work collaboratively across the health system to develop and maintain strong relationships with key stakeholders in the community to promote adoption and meaningful clinical use of digital health services and technologies, to deliver benefit to all Australians. A key priority is ensuring strong clinical engagement with the National Digital Health Strategy and associated programs and services – including the My Health Record system – and clinical input and assurance into the design, development and delivery of digital health systems. The role provides clinical leadership for the implementation, advancement and optimisation of digital systems nationally. I’m a clinician with a background in health informatics, and decades of experience in hospitals and public sector organisations, with an emphasis on governance, design, development and deployment of digital health strategies and technologies. Before moving into digital health, I had more than 14 years’ experience as a registered nurse, including paediatric and adult intensive care. I am now able to apply my understanding of health systems and practice not just to optimise technology design and rollout, but to act as an effective agent of change, building engagement and momentum around transformational programs. Q. What are some of the latest projects/developments that you are currently working on at ADHA? A. The Australian Digital Health Agency is setting out the pathway to achieve our goals in the National Digital Health Strategy, to support the premise that “A workforce confidently using digital health technologies to deliver health and care will be required to address the technology adoption challenge and calls for supporting the workforce to better adapt to, use and embrace the changes and opportunities created by digital health innovation.” A digitally enabled workforce for Australia will benefit consumers, healthcare professionals and the broader health system. In addition, future innovations and approaches to healthcare delivery, such as applied data analytics, and technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced robotics, will require a shift in the skills mix of the healthcare workforce in order to obtain the greatest benefit of these advances for healthcare consumers. To support this, the Agency is undertaking a program to consult the health sector and other relevant stakeholders on strategies to address the enablement of the workforce and any perceived gaps. Our aim is to develop a holistic understanding of the potential skills and workforce shortages and develop strategies to address them. This will culminate in the development of a National Digital Health Workforce and Education Roadmap. The roadmap will be a focal point for a National Digital Health Workforce and Education Summit being planned for later in 2019. This event will bring together stakeholders from across the sector to consider the roadmap and agree the practical actions required to deliver the workforce Australia needs. Q. From your experience both as nurse and in healthcare informatics, what do you feel are the greatest challenges in the journey toward achieving better health outcomes through digital health? A. Striving to deliver real-time improvements in clinician workflow is the holy grail for me, but I know that we aren’t there yet. That said, l also know that many of my colleagues are deeply invested in this as an outcome, and recognise that to truly deliver on improvements in patient outcomes, we need to improve the way digital tools and technologies work inside healthcare environments. It might keep me awake at night, but I do believe we’ll see real change in the not-so-distant future. Q. In 2017, you were awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study methods to prevent patient harm through national digital health safety governance. Could you share with us some of your key insights/findings from the study, especially through your visits to the UK, USA and Canada? A. My Fellowship trip was life-changing and I met so many people who gave their time, their insights and knowledge so generously – Australia can undoubtedly benefit from this wealth of experience.  I developed a set of recommendations that drew on the overall findings and principles articulated within my Churchill report. I also drew on the premise of the ‘Health Information Technology (HIT) Safety Center’ model developed in the USA. I did this in part as it is the only fully elaborated model supported by an extensive evidence base, the structure of which is informed by learnings beyond the USA borders. The Center was originally recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Report ‘Health IT and Patient Safety: Building Safer Systems for Better Care’, published in 2012, with a subsequent commitment by the Obama administration to establish the roadmap to develop the Center.  It was further endorsed through the USA Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA) of 2015. While the Center has not been implemented as it was originally envisioned, many of its proposed members are active in the ‘Partnership for Health IT Safety’, a multi-stakeholder collaborative of more than 50 organisations that come together to analyse safety events and hazards, identify, and share solutions and safe practices, and inform policymakers and the broader healthcare community about priorities for health IT safety. I contend that Australia should assemble a taskforce of experts from across the health sector, to include clinicians, consumers, government, researchers, policy makers and industry to develop the vision, mission, outcomes and roadmap for better coordinated digital health patient safety in Australia. The taskforce’s expressed purpose is to ensure digital health is safer for patients and will build upon the significant progress already made in Australia, and internationally. More information can be obtained here.   

Fujitsu will apply AI methods to images of the brain generated by GE’s Revolution CT scanner, and use a specifically-trained algorithm to look for abnormalities.

The cloud migration aims to give the provider, which boasts four facilities in Victoria, better remote access and disaster recovery.

Delivered by UNSW's Entrepreneurship Unit, the 20-week programme will include five health startups providing products and services focused on chronic diseases.

A Pharmaceutical Society of Australia report finds that real-time prescription monitoring, electronic prescriptions and pharmacist input into the country’s My Health Record electronic health record system are among the top areas where investments are needed.

Even though 90% of Australians now have an account, one challenge has been to convince more providers that there's enough clinical utility for it to benefit them, said AMA South Australia president Dr. Chris Moy.