AI 'doctor' to diagnose medical scans

Computers analyze medical imagery at a precise medical laboratory at the Guizhou Provincial People’s Hospital. [Photo/news.gog.cn]

Costly misdiagnoses might soon be a thing of the past at Guizhou Provincial People’s Hospital thanks to its newest recruit – an AI “doctor.”

The AI program is part of the hospital’s precise medical laboratory set up with the help of Guizhou University and the Chinese Academy of Science.

It allows fresh medical scans such as X-rays and CT scans to be compared to thousands of previously-diagnosed scans stored in a central database. The ultimate aim of the project is to offer suggestions to radiographers and other medical professionals and increase the accuracy of diagnoses.

For now most of the medical images are analyzed by senior doctors at the hospital, making it a costly and time-consuming process. The new system will not only free up doctors’ time, it will reduce human error by picking up minor clues that might have been missed, such as a small shadow. By trawling through an extensive patient database the system can point out anomalies and speed up diagnosis.

The hospital’s radiology department has formed a vivid database by collecting scans taken from advanced medical imaging equipment. With the help of experienced doctors, new scans are put through the AI system’s data modeling analysis to isolate features and determine therapeutic treatment for each disease.

Director of Radiology Department, Wang Rongpin, explained that the hospital wants to set up a healthcare system that allows artificial intelligence to perform immediate diagnosis as patients are scanned.

“I believe the day won’t be long away,” said Wang.

Zhang Xiangyan, Party secretary of Guizhou Provincial People’s Hospital, tries on VR glasses at the VR medical hall at the Guizhou Provincial People’s Hospital. [Photo/news.gog.cn]