Australia’s Gold Coast University Hospital in Queensland is set to become the first public hospital in the country to incorporate AI in its radiology unit. This step is aimed at speeding up the evaluation of X-rays, MRI, ultrasounds, and CT scans, a major step in Australian healthcare.
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“It is our understanding that we are the first public hospital to undertake this procurement in Australia.”
hospital spokesperson
AI assists radiologists, boosting efficiency
The hospital has just initiated the procurement process for the acquisition of the AI technology, which is estimated to take six months. It is planned to start a clinical trial in 2025. The spokesman of the hospital, Sandip Kumar noted that the application of AI is not just the introduction of new technology, but the process of testing it out thoroughly. The main objective is to enhance the health care results and assess the applicability of the technology prior to large-scale utilization.
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Radiologists will be assisted by AI in the interpretation of medical images, which can lead to a 20% enhancement in employee efficiency. This is aimed at assisting radiologists and not replacing them; it aims at sorting images and identifying abnormalities. This approach is expected to reduce the time taken and also to decrease the workload on the medical personnel.
According to the announcement, Gold Coast University Hospital has decided to venture into the use of AI after struggling with challenges in its radiology department. The hospital had a backlog of over 50,000 medical images in July 2023 due to a lack of enough staff and increased demand. This backlog created more outsourcing of X-rays, CT scans, and ultrasounds to the private sector, putting patients in danger. Since then, the hospital has cleared the backlog and has employed six more full-time radiographers to avoid such a situation in the future.
South Australian hospitals adopt AI for patient discharge predictions
The use of AI at Gold Coast University Hospital is an example of the increasing use of AI in Australia’s healthcare industry. South Australia’s hospitals have already adopted the locally developed “Adelaide Score” AI that can predict the time of discharge of patients after surgery. This application has assisted in the management of beds in hospitals and decrease in the time that patients spend in the hospital.
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It is worth noting that the New South Wales (NSW) government has created a task force to create an AI strategy for the state’s public health institutions. New South Wales Health has already implemented AI in integrated electronic medical record and data analysis, which shows its versatility.
Additionally, The Trustworthy & Responsible AI Network (TRAIN) consortium has officially started in Europe to help leading medical institutions work together. This is a joint effort with Microsoft involved in an attempt to solve ethical and practical issues that are associated with the use of AI in healthcare to ensure that there are proper ways of applying these technologies in the healthcare system.
Cryptopolitan Reporting by Brenda Kanana