AI for good: its impact on Healthcare
Author: GoodCON
Every time AI is mentioned, one can sense in the room mixed feelings of excitement and fear. Excitement as AI unveils a new world of solutions for long-existing pain points. Fear towards the unknown and the negative impacts it could have on all of us, as a society.
The Zela initiative, for example, focuses on Enabling Zero Latency Acceleration For Good. Its solutions are paving the way for smart hospitals, enabling faster time-to-insight and better decision making.
Why is it for good?
NTT Disruption has worked alongside healthcare professionals to develop new AI solutions that serve as an aid for their job: helping them become more effective, make faster and better decisions, reduce their stress while providing better patient care. This way, Zela is fully supporting the 4th pillar of the Quadruple AIM framework (“Care Team Well-Being”) by supporting the medical staff’s daily routines, increasing Care-Team satisfaction and reducing burnout levels (In a 2015 study, 50% of physicians reported symptoms of burnout). The Quadruple Aim is a Framework, designed by the US Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) that defines the ground rules for optimizing the health system.
Virtual Patient Observation (VPO)
A good example of how Zela is applying AI For Good in the Healthcare Sector is the Virtual Patient Observation which is being implemented as a Proof of Concept at InCor within Hospital das Clinicas (Sao Paulo, Brazil). VPO utilizes video and Artificial Intelligence to simplify medical staff and nurses’ daily routines with regards to 24/7 supervision of hospitalized patients. VPO performs continuous monitoring of patients to detect unwanted events or actions and triggers the necessary alerts to the medical team.
Events such as patient falling, extubating or trying to sit and leave the bed, can now be autonomously supervised by VPO. It can serve as a critical support tool for nurses to improve patient’s safety. Patient’s privacy is always safeguarded, as VPO does not store any video footage (the system utilizes real-time processing and AI to learn and identify behaviors).
Second Opinion (SO) Solution
From the close collaboration with medical institutions’ professionals, another AI for good solution is being developed: a Second Opinion (SO) Solution. It helps optimize triage processes in emergency rooms (ER), based on patients’ medical images.
One of the critical aspects in ERs, is the patient prioritization model, as this is critical to provide early care to patients in more critical conditions. That’s why second opinions by specialists are crucial to properly address patients’ needs and prioritize their attention.
Zela’s Second Opinion utilizes AI to detect anomalies in patients’ medical imaging, providing doctors with the possibility of prioritizing patients, based on the detected anomalies. SO solution is working on the integration of the evaluation of several types of medical images and data (e.g., EKG, x-ray, CT, MRI), coming from multiple exams, providing an automated first insight on patients’ medical condition to aid patient’s prioritization decisions from the medical team, offering a medically oriented solution, as it is trained by doctors and not by IT experts or specialists. In addition, it is being developed to facilitate the integration of new data in multiple remote healthcare solutions, like Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) and patient management.
“Working on AI to improve healthcare professionals’ well-being is something we do for many reasons other than this being a trend and believe me, this is not an easy road,”
said Mateo Hermosín, Innovation Manager Mateo Hermosín, Innovation Manager for Zela Healthcare.
“We truly believe in the power of technology to make these professionals’ work and lives more pleasant. Although AI is widely present in the media, and it seems like it is well established in our lives, this is just the beginning. That is why it is very important for us, to contribute from our humble approach to make sure it is a firm first step towards a brighter future,” Hermosín added.
Both VPO and SO are solutions designed by NTT Disruption based on AI to enable faster and better decision making for the medical teams. By doing this, we contribute to the improvement of patient care in the Healthcare industry, “for good”.
Want to know more about Zela’s AI solutions for good in Healthcare? Drop us a line!
