In 1992, to raise eye health awareness in China, Tianjin Medical University Professor of ophthalmology Wang Yanhua and epidemiology Professor Keng Yung organized the inaugural Eye Health Day. In 1996, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, the Central Committee and the China Disabled Persons’ Federation, along with 12 other ministries jointly declared Eye Health Day to be a national health education day, and determined June 6 National Eye Health Day. 20 years later, 2017 National Eye Health Day’s theme is “Bathe in sunshine, prevent myopia”.
On June 6 this year, many medical institutions throughout China carried out a variety of eye health activities to help the public better understand their own eye health. In Beijing’s Hepingli locality, Beijing Hospital, Hepingli Hospital, and Hepingli Zhong Community Health Service Station collaborated with Airdoc, a leader in medical artificial intelligence, to offer clinical retinoscopy screenings to the community.
Early that day, before the event began, community residents began lining up at the two screening locations, to experience first hand artificial intelligence in medical care. After a simple eye exam, residents lined up to take fundus photos . These fundus images would use Airdoc’s intelligent algorithm for identification and screening. An experienced doctor would then review the AI’s results before sending the final report via text message or printout, to the residents.
Neighborhood resident Mr. Liu underwent the entire screening process and found that compared with traditional fundus examinations, incorporating artificial intelligence significantly shortens the wait time, greatly enhancing the overall medical experience.
Noting the high number of diabetes patients in line for the fundus screening, clinic chief Wang said that in many countries, diabetes patients undergo fundus screening several times a year, detecting in advance the possibility of complications, thus improving quality of life. But community health clinics currently have no professional ophthalmologists with the ability to perform traditional fundus screening. They can only refer patients to a large hospital for screening and treatment. However to see a doctor at a large hospital requires a lot of time in queues, and is very inconvenient.
Airdoc’s fundus screening and auxiliary diagnostic system is simple to operate, eliminating the need for a professional ophthalmologist, thereby empowering any community clinic to easily perform fundus screens.
At Hepingli Hospital, Airdoc’s AI provided initial screening results which were then reviewed by the hospital’s experts. Hepingli Hospital resident ophthalmologist said that this process of using artificial intelligence for initial screening has greatly reduced the pressure on doctors, allowing them to spend more time and energy communicating with patients.
Large hospitals: in hospitals in China, patient care is strictly divided by medical specialties with very little overlap or synergy. For example, patients with anything to do with eye problems will be referred to the ophthalmology department. In China ophthalmologists, especially those who specialize in fundus, are scarce; while eye disease patients are many. This imbalance creates a very heavy burden on ophthalmologists. An example of a problem with inter-specialty division is diabetic retinopathy (DR). While DR can present as problems with the eyes, it is a complication stemming from diabetes.
A huge benefit of artificial intelligence is that it can be used across medical departments. Diabetic retinopathy screening can be performed outside the department of ophthalmology. With more than one billion Chinese diabetic patients, DR is the most common and most terrible complication of diabetes; every diabetic patient has the potential of developing DR, which leads to high risk of blindness. Through medical artificial intelligence products, doctors in the endocrinology department can perform DR screening, referring only positively screened patients to ophthalmology, before the onset of blindness. This greatly saves time for both patients and ophthalmologists, and also helps avoid possible overlooked and misdiagnosed cases.
Community Clinics: Compared with large hospitals, community clinics’ service capacity are limited. Most clinics don’t have the resources needed to meet even the basic needs of the majority of patients. China’s rural population accounts for more than 80%, yet is serviced by less than 10% of the nation’s health resources. In 2014, the number of medical service outlets, including hospitals and clinics, in the country was more than 7.6 billion. However the number of medical diagnoses and treatment at community clinics dropped from 62% in 2009 to 58%. Premier Li Keqiang presided over the State Council executive meeting and urged the promotion of quality medical resources at the community level, to enhance the level of and access to basic health care.
Artificial intelligence algorithms learn from the experience of doctors, giving community doctors an ever-learning assistant to help provide better patient care.
Third Party: In 2014, China began deregulation of privatized medical Institutions in an effort to stimulate growth in the medical sector. As such, in recent years, more and more social capital has gone into the medical field, resulting in more private hospitals, and other private medical treatment service centers.
For private institutions, although the medical resources and cost control are very important issues, a larger problem is the overall lack of highly qualified doctors. Artificial intelligence can aggregate and systematize the knowledge and experience of these qualified doctors and transfer this knowledge base to application in the private sector. AI can help read medical images at speed and scale, saving time and costs, playing a huge role in the development of private hospitals.
After this year’s Eye Health Day clinic, it’s obvious to see that in this era of “big health”, traditional medical treatment services will see many big changes brought on by artificial intelligence. Airdoc will continue to work with doctors to leverage AI to improve medical treatment services.
