See How Artificial Intelligence is Revolutionizing Healthcare and Medical Companies

AI tools help build and develop medical market sectors such as test result analysis, telediagnosis, and medical data processing. They change not only the hospital management system, but also the lives of individual patients. With the aid of IBM Power servers, Comarch experts have developed an algorithmic platform for EKG signal analysis, an advanced document classifier, a medical e-interview, and a remote diagnostic point.

Comarch Medical AI Cloud is a package of services that assist doctors and nurses, hospital and outpatient clinic managers, as well as the patients themselves. With the aid of artificial intelligence, the Comarch solutions support doctors and patients, speed up data analysis and diagnosis, improve the organization of medical knowledge and data, simplify the treatment process, boost performance and healthcare quality, and cut costs. All thus is made possible by IBM Power servers, designed to support processes that require reliability and high computing power, such as those that use artificial intelligence or machine learning.

Remote ECG – AI that monitors heart function

Comarch’s AI products allow huge amount of patient data to be collected remotely, after which this information can be transmitted directly to the center responsible for data analysis. The mechanism has been used, for example, in devices designed to monitor ECG signals, such as an advanced Holter monitor that performs 24-48h testing.

“No bigger than a smartphone, the device is connected to a set of electrodes fixed to the patient’s skin. The system collects, transmits, and analyzes readings on an ongoing basis, and if a dangerous event occurs, it immediately notifies the monitoring center, which may, for instance, call an ambulance. Thanks to a built-in GPS/GSM module, help may be dispatched directly to the patient’s location”, explains Marcin Wiśniewski, a Comarch expert in e-health and head of a team in charge of developing AI solutions for e-health products. Because the data undergo complex, AI-driven analysis, the device is able to detect the most common cardiac abnormalities, such as tachycardia, bradycardia, ventricular tachycardia and ventricular and atrial fibrillation in real time.

An even more advanced solution, CardioVest, is a device that can monitor the patient for up to a month. This allows the detection of silent atrial fibrillation, an episodic disorder of which patients are frequently unaware.

“Silent atrial fibrillation has a huge impact on health, especially for seniors. This is why we created a special heart-monitoring vest, later refashioned as a belt. The device is easy to wear and switch on (no need for any electrodes), and you can just put it away then you take a shower”, explains Marcin Wiśniewski.

Detailed measurement data are passed on to the CMAP (Comarch Medical Analysis Platform) center, where they are analyzed automatically.

“It would take a long time for a doctor to go through a month’s worth of ECG records, so instead we rely on artificial intelligence, which sifts through the gigabytes of signals to detect irregularities. As a result, doctors receive a carefully filtered dataset; instead of looking through several hundred hours of material, they can analyze and evaluate the irregularities identified by AI”, the Comarch expert explains. For doctors, hospitals and outpatient clinics, this means important time and money savings, while patients get access to a much fuller diagnosis.

The device is highly efficient, with 91% sensitivity and 92% positive predictive value. The service may be purchased as a single monitoring session (lasting, for example, two weeks or one month) or subscribed to as part of a broader healthcare package.

E-Interview, or bots that help diagnose disease

A new medical e-interview designed by Comarch experts relies on structured medical knowledge, diagnostic pathway databases, machine learning, and patient response analysis.

The e-interview can be used from the moment of registration in an outpatient clinic.

“The device will ask the patient about various health complaints, adapting successive questions to the answers provided earlier. This is more than just an interview; the system collects and analyzes in-depth data. As a result, the doctor receives a set of pre-organized information about the patient, along with a suggested list of the most probable conditions. The machine will suggest anything from several to more than 10 disorders, not to foist anything on the doctor, but to offer potential solutions that might not have even crossed their mind”, explains the Comarch expert.

The diagnostic efficacy of the e-Interview for a database of 60 most popular disorders is more than 80%, which means it can already provide considerable support to healthcare professionals. What’s more, it is still being enhanced.

A virtual HealthNote at the tips of your fingers

Comarch HealthNote is a convenient application that enables patients to store their medical data, available both in paper and electronic form, such as scanned medical records, and record various measurements, such as body weight, temperature, pulse rate, glucose levels, blood pressure, step count, and any alarming symptoms. It can also be used to store patient documents generated at medical centers that use the Comarch system.

“If you get a paper document, you can take a photo of it, or scan it, and then save it in the app. The problem has traditionally been when you have a lot of files that are not well described or organized. This is where AI comes in; it can read these documents and understand them at a basic level, and will tag them before deciding whether it is looking at a hospital discharge letter, lab test results, medical records, a referral or a prescription”, explains Marcin Wiśniewski.

If necessary, you can also use the app to share your medical records with a doctor. Patients can authorize access to all or part of their resources by scanning an appropriate QR code that will show up on the doctor’s screen. Internet access is all it takes to deliver the patient’s medical history and lab results in an instant. Data thus collected and structured can also be used to create various graphs and tables, which may be useful for healthcare professionals and the patients themselves.

Diagnostic points: step into a booth and get tested

In response to the expectations of patients and doctors in the field of telemedicine, Comarch experts have designed and launched a new solution: modern diagnostic points. These provide patients with access to medical equipment they can use to test their basic vital parameters on their own.

The solution is available as a small booth or, in the mobile version, a suitcase containing the necessary equipment. Diagnostic points can offer a basic test set, performed by the patient, or an extended set, assisted by a nurse.

The points measure parameters such as body weight and temperature, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and ECG. They can also perform medical interviews.

“Oxygen saturation is measured through a clip that fits on your finger. And you can perform a basic ECG scan with a device no bigger than a credit card, on which you have to put the fingers of both hands. After the test, you will receive an email with the doctor’s feedback and analysis of your results”, says Marcin Wiśniewski.

The solution may be implemented, for example, in workplaces, schools, airports, shopping centers, gyms, gas stations, offices, and even on board ships and aircraft. It has also attracted the interest of hospitals, which want to give their patients an opportunity to perform basic tests instantly.

IBM Power technology: what lies behind innovative solutions

In order to be as fast and accurate as possible, AI solutions require physical equipment able to analyze huge data volumes. Because speed and quality are of the essence, especially in healthcare, Comarch experts have long worked with IBM POWER servers.

“All industry tests show IBM solutions to be much faster than others. This success is inscribed in the original idea of POWER servers, which were specifically designed to carry out huge numbers of computations. The AI revolution shows that a competitive edge is gained by companies that know how to use technology to improve their speed and performance in order to analyze large data volumes with the use of specially trained neural networks, and the latest IBM Power servers (series AC922 and IC922) have been designed specifically for the purpose of machine learning and artificial intelligence. These solutions also have an extra advantage thanks to their fast, high-performance NVIDIA graphic cards and an architecture that enables split-second data sharing”, explains Marcin Trzaskowski, Data Center Director at Comarch.

Besides speed and performance, IBM Power equipment is also superior in terms of security, which is especially important when it comes to medical data.

“IBM provides advanced encryption with its disk arrays as standard. We need to be sure that the data we handle are secure, which is why we also use our own severs and server rooms, and never store data in cloud solutions offered by other companies. And, even if an unauthorized person breaks into our data center and tries to steal the data physically, it will be in vain, because the data are encrypted on different disks and disk arrays”, adds Marcin Trzaskowski.

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