Using the power of technology to improve healthcare
This London Tech Week (June 13-17), Gretchen Ladish, programme manager for Barts Life Sciences, explains how harnessing the power of technology is helping improve the delivery of healthcare across east London and beyond.
“Delivering healthcare has always generated data. But over the last few decades, with improvements in technology and digitisation, the amount of healthcare data available has increased dramatically.
“The result is vast amounts of information that can inform how diseases develop, respond to treatment etc., all of which – if analysed properly – can provide valuable insight into how we prevent, diagnose and treat diseases. But to harness the power of this data, we need technology. That’s where Barts Life Sciences and their CAP-AI programme come in.
What is CAP-AI?
“The CAP-AI programme involves healthcare professionals, academics, data scientists and industry working together to use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to analyse existing healthcare data for clues about diseases. These clues are then used to develop innovative new ways to better detect and prevent diseases, deliver healthcare and more. Now in its second cohort of funding, the programme has funded 11 projects which are already making a difference to health outcomes.
A success from the start
“From the off, the CAP-AI programme has demonstrated the power of using AI in the healthcare setting. For example, one of the projects funded in the first round was looking at improving how we diagnose and manage diabetic foot disease, a potentially serious complication of diabetes. The team scanned 14.2 million documents to identify patients with the condition and successfully and more rapidly identified patients with diabetic foot problems.
“Doing so makes it easier for clinicians to schedule earlier treatments to save feet and limbs from amputation. The AI technology they used took just weeks to analyse the data, a task which would have taken a single doctor over 100 years!
“Other projects in the cohort also had success in using AI to improve diagnosis and treatment of heart and gastrointestinal conditions among others, with much of the research published in peer-reviewed journals and in the media.
Continuing to drive improvements
“The second round of projects from the CAP-AI programme are completing at the end of this year and are already delivering results. For example, the team looking at how electronic healthcare records can be used to determine risk of pancreatic cancer in the east London populations have already published promising results.
“They found that the chances of being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer were increased in people with diabetes or pancreatitis, or those who smoke or drink. Conversely, those with a history of respiratory or heart conditions were less likely to develop this form of cancer.
“These results could help healthcare professionals develop new, better ways to stratify individuals for their risk of developing pancreatic cancer, monitor people deemed to be at a higher risk, and in turn help early detection of this often deadly disease.
Looking to the future
“The CAP-AI programme clearly shows the benefits and power of using AI technology to improve healthcare. This programme is just one example of how Barts Life Sciences and the wider NHS is harnessing technology to improve how we deliver healthcare now and in the future.”
CAP-AI is led by Capital Enterprise, London’s start-up experts, with partners Digital Catapult, the UK’s leading digital technology innovation centre, The Alan Turing Institute and Barts Life Sciences. It is funded by the European Regional Development Fund and Barts Charity.
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