Artificial Intelligence

Also, The Royal Marsden, in the UK, launches AI virtual agent to support key workers post lockdown.

A new JAMIA study suggests it's possible to protect sensitive patient data while developing models to ultimately optimize care.

The new preview feature can associate words or phrases in unstructured text with semantic entities, such as symptom, diagnosis and medication dosage.

An interview with Dr Helmi Zakariah, CEO, AIME.   

The two pilot projects involve using voice-recognition technology to remind patients to take medication and connecting individuals with others through an online community.

The Medical University of South Carolina employed a four-pronged approach to scale up its virtual-care offerings and monitor COVID-19 patients.

The speed and scale at which healthcare organizations have had to embrace cloud hosting, often without proper due diligence, could lead to lasting risks and vulnerabilities for a much bigger attack surface, according to new report from security vendor Vectra.

Leader in AI-powered cancer diagnostics, Ibex Medical Analytics and provider of digital pathology services in the NHS, LDPath, have announced the UK’s first rollout of clinical grade AI application for cancer detection in pathology. This platform will support pathologists in enhancing diagnostic accuracy and efficiency. WHY IT MATTERS Over the years, a global increase in cancer cases has coincided with a decline in the number of pathologists around the world. Traditional pathology involves manual processes that have remained the same for years. These processes involve slides to be analysed by pathologists using microscopes, and reporting is often carried out on pieces of paper. The limited availability of pathologists has required couriers to transport glass slides containing tissue samples between different locations to access expert opinions.  LDPath, which provides histopathological imaging and reporting services to 24 NHS trusts throughout the UK, will use its position as a digitally enabled provider within the NHS to integrate Ibex’s Galen Prostate platform into its digital pathology workflow. With the CE-marked platform from Ibex, prostate biopsies at LDPath will be reviewed by an AI algorithm concomitant with the pathologist’s diagnosis. THE LARGER CONTEXT In recent times, it has been highlighted that the shortage of pathologists in the UK has led to delays in cancer diagnosis, which can take up to six weeks. Together with increased demand, this is exerting pressure on pathology departments while also raising concerns about diagnostic accuracy. In addition, such supply and demand issues contribute to critical issues for NHS diagnostics, including breached National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) cancer guidelines and an increased dependency on expensive temporary solutions. ON THE RECORD Sanj Lallie, director of operations at LDPath said: “This is a significant step in realising the benefits of AI tools within the UK as we continue to redefine traditional workflows across our NHS network. Our NHS clients will benefit from this additional quality assurance measure as well as new service offerings, including singular AI screening of all prostate biopsies within a 24 hour period and UKAS internal audits.” Joseph Mossel, Ibex Medical Analytics CEO and co-founder said: “We are excited to collaborate with LDPath to bring a paradigm shift for pathology in the UK, and around the world, increasing efficiency and improving accuracy of cancer diagnostics.” “Cancer cases continue to rise, and with the pathology practice experiencing a worldwide shortage, AI-based technologies can drive new workflows for pathology that will be critical for improving cancer care practices for patients, pathologists, labs and entire healthcare systems.” 

With a large backlog of appointments caused by coronavirus, some hospitals in England and Wales have started using algorithms to prioritise patients most urgently in need of care and to help clear the mounting numbers. Multiple companies are vying to get into this space from Babylon's AI services which provide health information, to DrDoctor, which recently released a new AI software adopted to collate and automatically rate patient’s responses with digital questionnaires. WHY IT MATTERS DrDoctor’s software assesses the urgency of a patient's illness with a traffic light scoring system, giving patients either a green, amber or a red score. Tom Whicher, CEO of DrDoctor estimates that if every hospital in the country adopted his technology, the time needed to get through the backlog would be dramatically reduced from four years to ten months. DrDoctor has also stressed that the tool will not decide anything for patients, it does not make clinical suggestions or rule out any patients form receiving care. The platform will present the data and the clinician ultimately makes the decision. AI like this can utilize machine-learning technology to identify unnecessary appointments. Not only will it reduce the backlog burden, but it can also help to significantly alleviate the need for in-person appointments, pushing towards more virtual interactions for less urgent medical needs. THE LARGER TREND Waiting lists have grown tremendously because of the pandemic, prompting senior health officials to warn the public that 10 million people could be waiting for treatment by Christmas. Several hospitals in England have already rolled out DrDoctor’s tool, including community hospital, Aneurin Bevan, which signed a four-year deal with the provider earlier this year and is using it across 20 specialisms.  However, a concern raised recently is the theme of digital health gap inequalities in which researchers have warned that such tools could worsen health inequalities due to certain groups having greater access to the internet and technology, as well as being more digitally literate. This could mean that certain groups might not be accounted for in the data. There is also trepidation surrounding a computer’s ability to effectively decide whether medical needs are deemed as urgent. Particularly as health providers such as Babylon Health have been critised for claiming its symptom checker could diagnose health issues. ON THE RECORD Whicher told Healthcare IT News: "Our mission at DrDoctor is to solve the challenge of rising demand and costs in healthcare and ensure every patient receives the care they need. We're delighted to be able to present real world examples of this working at scale. There is no doubt that healthcare is at an inflection point. It's medicine's industrial revolution. By working together we can use technology to rise to this challenge"

These solutions can now be commercialized and sold in 27 member states of the European Union, the Acceding countries as well as EFTA states.