Artificial Intelligence (AI) is significantly improving the delivery of healthcare through our on-going challenge to combat non-communicable diseases.
A very interesting area of health AI has been within the diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy.
Diabetic Retinopathy is defined as damage to the blood vessels in the tissue at the back of the eye (retina) which is impacted by poorly managed blood sugar.
Diabetic Retinopathy is the major cause of vision loss amongst the450 million humans living with diabetes and the leading cause of vision impairment and blindness.
In the United States, IDx has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a stand-alone artificial intelligence algorithm to analyse images of the eye taken with a retinal called the TopCon NW400. In China, Airdoc has also found success in diagnosing DR for the 110 million plus Chinese citizens who are diagnosed with diabetes.
In Australia, the CSIRO has also developed this unique technology but regrettably the technology has been licensed overseas and was unable to find market penetration locally. So, undoubtedly these three significant DR and AI breakthrough have confirmed that AI will be playing a significant role in determining VR and thereafter through a process of ophthalmology.
Indeed, there will always be resistance to ground-breaking AI but, this actually improves the ability of ophthalmologists to successfully treat the disease. Unequivocally, AI DR is only a diagnostic tool and there will be an on-going requirement that ophthalmologists have to treat the disease and pay special attention to patients with acute DR.
Various commentators, especially within health-care advisory environments publish volumes of material in explaining how AI will transform healthcare. However, these multi-national advisory firms are not at the frontier of developing AI for DR, but it is scientific, medical research who are developing the algorithm and fine-tuning them through clinical trials and trial and error processes.
We at Karni Health Tech have a strong and experienced team of software engineers and ophthalmologists who are deeply exploring the unique processes to like-wise develop this ground-breaking AI technology.
The question beckons: Just because other esteemed organizations have developed this unique technology, does that mean the game is over? The answer is no.
Because there will be an on-going need for other healthcare organizations to develop this technology and who can penetrate the market through various unique patient-centric processes.
Within Australia there is always a need to clinically design to further embrace this technology and fund these breakthroughs which begs the question: Is your healthcare organization ready to further embrace this technology?
Within Australia, where we have 1.8 million diabetics (1.3 million registered with NDS and 500,000 unregistered) and Medicare provides appropriate funding for either optometrists (250,000+ diagnosis) and ophthalmologists to provide on-going care. Thereby, the need to introduce this technology into Australia is fundamental and a local healthcare organization needs to take the initiative and find the appropriate way to penetrate the market.
Accordingly, if your organization wants to better understand the development of AI for DR, Karni Health Tech can assist to develop the technology and allow you to utilize it throughout your healthcare diagnostic processes.
Please feel free to email Karni Health Tech. Take the initial steps to at least find out the processes involved and gradually develop your own and unique AI for HR.
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