Part 1: How Technology Is Causing A Medical Revolution – Best Uses Of Artificial Intelligence In Healthcare

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integral to our lives, endless debate has followed in regard to which side of the fence you sit on: is this advantageous to the way we live, or will it cause an apocalyptic end to humanity? Only time will tell. But one thing surely everyone can agree on is the monumental benefits we reap from the use of AI in healthcare.

AI has forever changed the way that the healthcare sector operates around the world. Not only can this technology make healthcare systems more efficient by improving the productivity of care delivery, but it is allowing medical practitioners to work quicker and more directly with their patients, reducing the risk of their burnout.

Whilst listing all the ways in which AI has rejuvenated the healthcare system would simply take too long, below are some companies that speak to this point for themselves. Each is harnessing the power of AI to make innovative and life-changing improvements in the global medical sphere. From improving how medical research is conducted, to aiding the accessibility of healthcare services, to changing the way we treat mental and physical illnesses, these platforms are using AI in some of the most ingenious and creative ways around.

For more companies using AI to change the healthcare scene, see Part 2 HERE.

Acıbadem

3D imaging and AI-based projection have become popular in many sectors including health services during the last decade. Acıbadem has implemented AI-based solutions to accelerate operational efficiency and patient outcomes across all medical fields that it operates including oncology, cardiology, neurology and plastic surgery.

Prof. Dr. Bülent Saçak from Acıbadem Healthcare Group states that “Plastic surgery is one of the fields that has certainly benefited from the 3D imaging revolution and AI as successful surgeries actually start before the actual operation”.

Professor Saçak celebrates the significance of technological development: “Vectra 3D simulation technology helps us to plan facial or body surgeries in a much more efficient way. Photos from different angles combined in an AI-based environment create a 3D image of the patient in the system. The software allows us to see the expected outcomes of the surgeries on the screen. Systems enable us to see all changes, followed with numeric results, whether it is the placement of a breast implant or liposuction”.

Planning is certainly the most crucial stage of a successful surgery however 3D Imaging technology also supports the surgeon in terms of management of the patient’s expectations by giving them a clear visual representation of the outcome of the surgery. This communication is vital to the patient’s satisfaction journey so they have realistic expectations of the results of the surgery and are satisfied with the final result.

eXpanded eXistence 

eXpanded eXistence (eXeX) is a medical tech company headed up by CEO Robert Masson, M.D. Robert and his innovative team have a track record of over 450 surgeries utilising this cutting-edge platform, which combines advanced AI and Mixed Reality technology. eXeX is making waves in healthcare by significantly reducing errors and minimising waste in operating rooms. The company has also developed the AI and Machine Learning platform HoloOps being used in over 450 surgeries throughout the US and UK.

Robert is a world-renowned neurosurgeon as well as an innovator in spine implants, technology and procedures. He has served on advisory boards for microsurgical systems, stem cell research, radiological software, orthobiologics and sports injury treatment & prevention. In addition, he has developed, educated, and influenced products for groups such as Sofamor Danek, Depuy Synthes Spine, a Johnson and Johnson Company, Centinel Spine and Biedermann Motech.

myGP

myGP app users have access to free Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered skin scanning technology. Provided by Autoderm®, the AI skin checker encourages people using the myGP app to take control of their skin health by submitting photos of their blemishes or concern. By uploading a photo of a skin concern, the user will receive the top 5 skin disease results ranked in order of probability within seconds.

Over 2.7 million people are now able to access this feature anonymously on the UK’s largest independent medical app, which lets users order repeat medication, book GP appointments and access local support services.

Typically requiring longer appointment slots than on average, skin consultations are one of the most common reasons for a GP visit amassing 13 million appointments per year, according to The British Association of Dermatology.

Interestingly, up to as many as half of users can be treated with over-the-counter medication and in fact, do not require a visit to the doctor for their skin concerns, Autoderm explains.

Founder and CEO of myGP, Tobias Alpsten commented “Already we are seeing thousands of myGP app users each week benefit from using this new feature. It gives users tools to proactively seek answers from a trusted source, to understand more about their skin and ultimately get a professional diagnosis if required.“

Dr Alexander Börve, MD, creator of Autoderm explains, “The AI model can screen for inflammatory diseases, benign tumours, skin cancers and visual sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) anonymously. It’s like a search engine for your skin. Instead of entering text and then looking at photos, you upload a photo of your skin ailment and get text back to make informed decisions on your skin concern.”

“We estimate that around 50% of its users can be relieved of their skin ailments by going to the pharmacy and the other 50% getting a timely GP appointment.”

To access the skin scanner tool, download the myGP app from the App Store.

Ada

Ada serves as an AI-driven medical assistant functioning as a symptom checker. This innovative assistant, well-versed in clinical evidence, aids users in monitoring their symptoms. Users have the capability to assess symptom severity and access medical guidance regarding available treatment options.

The solution boasts a comprehensive condition library, acting as a centralised repository of health conditions for users seeking additional information.

Up until now, the application has demonstrated promising outcomes. Notably, in a peer-reviewed study, Ada exhibited a remarkable 70% accuracy in identifying inflammatory rheumatic diseases (IRD), surpassing physicians who achieved a 54% accuracy rate. Ada even outperformed physicians in suggesting the final diagnosis.

It’s crucial to underscore that reliance on generative AI applications should not replace the support provided by trained and licensed medical professionals. Therefore, these tools are most effective when used in conjunction with guidance from qualified physicians.

Impress

Impress specialises in leading orthodontic treatments that harness the latest AI technologies.

Wysa

Wysa is a global leader in AI-driven mental health support, available both to individuals, through employer benefits programmes and healthcare services.

We believe access to support should be available whenever people need it. Stigma prevails, so we take away the need for people to ask for help and eliminate the need for people to make a judgement call on when they should seek professional support. Proven to improve depression and anxiety scores by an average of 31%, Wysa’s AI-first approach enables employees to improve their mental health before symptoms become severe, by understanding an individual’s needs and guiding them through interactive cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) exercises.

Wysa’s clinically safe AI encourages users to take additional support, whenever it’s needed, by guiding them towards Wysa’s human coaching, employer benefits programmes (EAP) or national crisis lines. Wysa has helped over 6 million people through 550 million AI conversations across 95 countries.

Duality Technologies

Duality Technologies enables analysis and AI on sensitive data while protecting data privacy, compliance and protecting valuable IP through PETs – has recently partnered with several of the world’s most prestigious medical research organisations (Harvard Medical, MIT, etc.) to deliver a major breakthrough in sharing Real-World patient data securely and efficiently for the purpose of advancing medical research and improving oncological patient outcomes.

They have jointly published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a paper titled ‘Collaborative Privacy-Preserving Analysis of Oncological Data using Multiparty Homomorphic Encryption’ which proves that secure collaboration on Real-World Data in healthcare is now feasible and efficient.

The privacy-enhancing tech solution developed by Duality satisfies security and privacy compliance by design, making it easier and faster to attain and analyse previously hard-to-access, but necessary, clinical and genomic RWD.

Duality is the leader in privacy-enhanced secure data collaboration, empowering organisations worldwide to maximise the value of their data without compromising on privacy or regulatory compliance. Founded and led by world-renowned cryptographers and data scientists, Duality operationalises privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) to accelerate data insights by enabling analysis and AI on sensitive data while protecting data privacy, compliance and protecting valuable IP. A World Economic Forum (WEF) Tech Pioneer and a Gartner Cool Vendor, Duality was recognised by numerous industry awards, including Fast Company 2023 World Changing Ideas award, 2023 CyberTech 100 Most Innovative Companies list, 2022 CB Insights’ AI 100, the 2022 RegTech 100 Awards, and the AIFinTech100 2022 Awards.

Found CRM

Found CRM is a care home management software built specifically for the care industry. Found‘s purpose is to simplify admin tasks in care homes through smart AI technology, while seamlessly fitting into the everyday operations.

Found eliminates the need for paper-based systems – saving the care sector £20 million pounds annually on wastage costs.

What’s more, the digital capabilities of Found go beyond environmental and cost-saving implications. Found‘s software safeguards both the well-being of residents and the health of social care facilities across the UK. Offering enhanced data security, improved accessibility, and simplified record management. Ultimately leading to better care outcomes for residents by bridging the gap between the health sector and the adult social care sector by improving communication between healthcare leads and industries.

The reduction in paper usage results in substantial cost savings for care home providers, allowing them to allocate resources more effectively. Whilst freeing up time for social care workers to focus on providing an excellent standard of care.

Found is constantly reviewing its product offerings and releasing new technology to improve the operational efficiency of the care sector to improve the quality and standard of care residents and their families receive.

Encord

Encord is a computer vision platform which has helped Kings College London to increase clinician labelling efficiency and automate 97% of produced labels. The highest-expense clinician saw a 16x labelling efficiency improvement.

Encord is a computer-vision-first training data platform which enables any company to harness the power of AI. So far, the London-based company has raised $19.6m and is backed by CRV, Y Combinator, WndrCo and Crane Venture Partners.

Encord was founded in 2020 by Ulrik Stig Hansen and Eric Landau after the pair recognised a lack of comprehensive, purpose-built tooling and infrastructure which was leading to constraints on AI development.

Now, Encord provides AI tools to a wide range of companies who otherwise would not have been able to access them on their own. Encord does this by making AI practical: the team builds applications that support the rapid creation of active learning pipelines, including training, diagnosis & validation of models, annotation, management, and evaluation of training data.

Encord has devised a unique and effective methodology for making machine learning development data-centric, with amazing results for its customers: for example, Encord’s tools have also helped RapidAI to reduce MRI and CT annotation time by 70%, and allowed Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Stanford Medical Centre to reduce experiment duration by 80% and process 3x more images.

Customers aren’t just limited to the healthcare industry: Encord’s tools have also helped nonprofits like Pollenize combat pollinator decline, insurance providers such as Tractable perform visual assessments and carbon credit companies like Treeconomy generate a 50-150% price premium compared to their competitors.

Skin Analytics

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Qureight

Complex lung diseases, such as Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) and Pulmonary Hypertension, currently have limited treatment options and poor survival rates. To address this, and to improve outcomes for patients, Qureight was founded by clinicians and researchers in Cambridge in 2018.

Qureight’s unique cloud platform and AI technology analyse CT scans, blood biomarkers and clinical results from patients with a range of complex lung and heart conditions. The technology creates models with both real-world and clinical trial data, so researchers can better understand how patients could respond to novel treatments.

They recently entered into a multi-year collaboration with the biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. The agreement will allow AstraZeneca to use Qureight’s proprietary platform and AI technology to conduct research across a range of complex lung diseases, furthering their understanding of how patients with rare and complex lung diseases could respond to novel drugs.

Ochre Bio

Ochre Bio is at the forefront of a revolutionary approach to combating liver disease. They employ deep phenotyping, a blend of machine learning and genetics, along with cutting-edge tissue imaging and cellular genomics, to comprehensively decode liver biology.

Using data they collect from thousands of discarded human liver donors, Ochre Bio has developed the world’s first human ‘liver atlas’. They use AI technology to analyse the dataset and to reveal patterns and correlations that accelerate therapeutic discovery.

Ochre Bio use these insights to guide their work to tackle the shortage of good-quality livers available for transplant and to develop non-invasive treatments to reverse the effects of liver disease. Their deployment of AI tech has reduced the typical preclinical drug development timeline from years to less than two months.

Medidata

Medidata, a Dassault Systèmes company, is using its proprietary technology platform enhanced by pioneering AI, to transform the entire clinical development process; helping the life sciences industry focus on patient needs/ reduce burden, de-risk development and bring lifesaving treatments to market faster. It is the world’s most-used platform for clinical development, commercial and real-world data and works with 18 of the world’s top 20 global pharmaceutical companies.

Fareed Melhem leads Medidata’s work developing analytic solutions that improve the design, planning, and execution of clinical trials and support the generation of novel evidence to support regulatory success, market access, and launch.

DrDoctor

DrDoctor is the UK’s leading patient engagement platform in the NHS, supporting secondary care and community and mental health across more than 40 NHS trusts and health boards. Using digital appointment-booking services and video consultations, DrDoctor empowers patients to take control of their healthcare and works to improve patients’ DNA rates by up to 35 per cent. Their mission is to work with their partners to understand the challenges facing their staff and deliver technology that automates routine tasks and common blockers whilst improving the quality of patient care. Founded in 2012, award-winning DrDoctor now has more than 150 employees and has booked more than 90 million appointments across NHS practices.

DrDoctor stands as an innovative company at the forefront of AI integration within healthcare. Their commitment to revolutionising patient experiences and operational efficiencies is evident through their multifaceted approach. The company’s three flagship products showcase its prowess in AI applications. The DNA predictions product, which employs decision tree models, facilitates optimised appointment management by predicting patient attendance probabilities and enabling timely interventions. The grouped clinics visualisation, driven by clustering algorithms, aids service managers in streamlining clinic flows and enhancing resource allocation.

As the company advances, its embrace of Large Language Models (LLMs) ushers in a new era of communication efficiency. Pioneered through successful proofs-of-concept, LLM-powered virtual assistants are poised to revolutionise patient engagement and internal processes. From composing personalised messages for patients to facilitating swift information retrieval, LLMs epitomise DrDoctor’s aspiration to seamlessly integrate AI into the fabric of healthcare.

DrDoctor’s approach is underscored by a commitment to data-driven decision-making, technological innovation, and patient-centred care. Their AI journey exemplifies a harmonious blend of cutting-edge technology and compassionate healthcare, reshaping the landscape and fostering a future where patients and practitioners thrive.