NHS report suggests AI will give docs more patient time

A report from the NHS suggests the impending technological ‘revolution’ in healthcare will increase the amount of time doctors can spend with patients.

NHS doctors are overburdened; a problem only getting worse from a growing and ageing population, and not enough funding.

The report was led by US academic Eric Topol and calls for a reskilling of NHS staff to harness new digital skills. AI and robotics can reduce the burden on healthcare professionals, but only if...

11 February 2019 | Healthcare

How AI technologies are helping in the fight against cancer

From the invention of smartphones to digital assistants like Siri or Alexa breakthrough technology has been an extremely hot topic in recent years. Many aspects of life revolve around technology, but some of the most incredible innovations, however, are unseen by the majority of us in our daily lives.

Generally speaking, it was much more grim to receive a cancer diagnosis roughly 50 years ago than it is today. The 5-year survival rate for childhood leukemia was just 14 percent...

17 January 2019 | Healthcare

Talent has begun leaking from DeepMind in recent months

If DeepMind is on your CV, you could walk into most tech companies and be offered a job on the spot with a six-figure salary. The firm is full of in-demand talent and its CEO once bragged that no employees had ever left.

Speaking to The Guardian in 2016, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said:

“We are able to literally get the best scientists from each country each year. So we’ll have, say, the person that won the Physics Olympiad in Poland, the person who got the top...

8 January 2019 | Deep Learning

How researchers are bringing AI-enabled radiology to rural India

Providing quality health services and screening to rural populations in a nation as large as India is extremely challenging: 67 percent of the Indian population resides in rural areas; 90 percent of medical imaging facilities are in cities; And there are only three radiologists per million people in the country. While educational health programmes have raised awareness of the importance of medical screening across India; this, in turn, has increased workloads for the few available...

5 December 2018 | Healthcare

DeepMind is using AI for protein folding breakthroughs

Protein folding could help diagnose and treat some of the worst diseases, and DeepMind believes AI can speed up that process. Conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and cystic fibrosis are suspected to be caused by misfolded proteins. Being able to predict a protein’s shape enables a greater understanding of its role within the body. Previous techniques used for determining the shapes of proteins – such as cryo-electron microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, and...

3 December 2018 | Healthcare

Bay Labs and Northwestern Medicine team up for AI-based ultrasound technique

US-based medical technology firm, Bay Labs, and quality healthcare and service provider, Northwestern Medicine, has enrolled their first patient in a collaborative ‘first-of-its-kind’ study, named “SHAPE: Seeing the Heart with AI Powered Echo” to evaluate AI-guided ultrasound acquisition by certified medical assistants (CMAs). This non-randomised study will enrol approximately 1,200 patients at Northwestern Medicine sites, including Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital and...

23 November 2018 | Healthcare

AI will play ‘crucial role’ in the NHS as five centres announced

The UK government has announced the opening of five centres designed to capitalise on AI’s potential benefits in healthcare. Patients will benefit from the use of AI to diagnose problems earlier, greatly increasing the chances of successful treatment. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said:

“Artificial intelligence will play a crucial role in the future of the NHS – and we need to embrace it by introducing systems which can speed up diagnoses, improve...

7 November 2018 | Government

How AI is being used to assess the symptoms of sepsis

Scientists at Imperial College London have developed a system that can treat patients with sepsis and, by using artificial intelligence, analyse the records of 100,000 hospital patients in intensive care units (ICU) to assess the best course of treatment. The tool, which is called AI Clinician, can be used alongside medical professionals to help doctors better understand the best treatment strategy. Sepsis, which is commonly known as blood poisoning, kills around 44,000 people every year in...

24 October 2018 | Healthcare

Tencent uses AI to speed up Parkinson’s diagnosis

Chinese tech giant Tencent has partnered with London-based medical firm Medopad to use AI for earlier Parkinson’s diagnosis. Earlier diagnosis of any medical problem is always good. Often it increases the chance of successful treatment, minimises suffering, and can increase life expectancy in terminal cases. Parkinson’s is a degenerative affliction without any known cure. Caught early, however, and measures can be taken which helps to slow its progression. Speaking to Forbes,...

8 October 2018 | Healthcare

New research explores potential of AI and machine learning in the healthcare sector

Machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and deep learning are being used in every imaginable industry – and healthcare is not left untouched. The growing demand for smart applications, wearables and better healthcare services is increasingly creating the scope of ML and AI applications in the pharma and healthcare sectors. Two market intelligence firms, Infiniti Research and Tractica, have highlighted the main applications of these technologies in healthcare industry. According...

5 September 2018 | Healthcare