Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotics Summaries of the presentations given at the Digital Health Ecosystem Wales event September 2018 Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotics Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotics We are delighted to bring you the first in a series hosted the event. His own presentation posed the of publications from our unique Digital Health possibility of an ‘extinction event’ if the challenges Ecosystem Wales (DHEW) programme. facing Western healthcare systems were not addressed. He acknowledged high levels of distrust Delivered in partnership by Life Sciences Hub of AI among the UK public even though it is already Wales and NHS Wales Informatics Service, DHEW in use in the NHS and asks whether we need to convenes and connects developers and companies better educate the public. offering innovative digital health solutions, with the NHS in Wales. Director of Digital Health at the Innovation Agency, Alan Davies introduced the State of the Nation Funded through the Welsh Government’s Efficiency Report on the use of AI in healthcare. Published by Through Technology Programme, the programme the Academic Health Science Network (AHSN), the is transforming the way that engagement and survey saw 131 organisations feedback about their co-operation takes place between NHS Wales own AI adoption and revealed widespread concerns and industry for the adoption of digital solutions. about trust, privacy and ethics. He suggests next steps include the development of an AI directory to Our September 2018 event highlighted the ground- share who is doing what with AI across the UK to breaking health and care innovation currently taking better support each other. place with health across Wales, the UK and Europe using Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, providing Dr Phil Webb, Associate Director of Innnovation, valuable learning and inspiration to our Eco-system Velindre University NHS Trust and Professor partners. Dympna Casey, National University of Ireland, Galway, shared pilots that tested the use of AI We hope that you will join us in driving forward Robots for patient communication. Both RiTTA and and supporting collaboration to effect significant Mario demonstrated a fairly positive reception and sustainable improvements to the health and among cancer and dementia patients respectively. wellbeing of families across Wales. Both projects are seen as a stepping stone towards more sophisticated patient-facing AI tools. Content overview Nuno Forneas and Ricardo Gil Santos from the What role could Artificial Intelligence, Machine Portuguese provider of technology solutions for the Learning and Robotics have in helping to address healthcare sector, Glintt, showcased their the challenges faced by heath systems around company’s offer. Glintt uses AI to help improve the world? logistics, resource management and HR and was able to show real-life examples of a private company This is the question posed at the September servicing both the public and the private sectors for 2018 DHEW event, which brought together the benefit of patients. an audience of innovators, clinicians, NHS and industry. The speakers outlined a range of examples An outline of each of the presentations is available where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already in use in within this publication and on Life Sciences Hub healthcare environments and explored the benefits Wales website. These include the key take-aways and challenges posed by these applications. from each presentation as well as a note of the questions and answer session following each Professor Hamish Laing, Professor of Enhanced presentation. Innovation, Engagement and Outcomes at the School of Management, Swansea University We invite you to join our Digital Health Eco-system today, please contact: [email protected] | 02920 467030 Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotics Artificial Intelligence and Robotics A presentation by Prof Hamish Laing, Professor 3. Information Revolution of Enhanced Innovation, Engagement and From a world where information was scarce we Outcomes, School of Management, are now creating a tsunami of data. How clinicians Swansea University manage so much information about their patients and how we can make sense of it for them (context- Headlines specific, aligned with best evidence) will be key. • The developed world is facing five forces of disruption that affect healthcare 4. Blessing and curse of technology • Changing age demographic Technological advances have undoubtedly had • Rise of chronic disease a massively positive impact on healthcare. But • Increasing amounts of digital data technology also comes at a price. How much is too • Increasingly sophisticated (and expensive) much? How do we future-proof budgets in an age technology of increasingly advanced (and increasingly expensive) • Increasingly savvy patients/consumers technology? How do we get best value from the technological advances? • Could or should Artificial Intelligence help us address some of these issues? 5. New health and care consumer • Studies show a high level of distrust of AI among Our patients are increasingly knowledgeable about the UK public. their illnesses and can make informed decisions • AI is already successfully used in many UK about their care. Should we think about them as healthcare applications. Do we need to better patients or healthcare consumers? educate the public? Demographic shifts Five disruptive forces in combination Not only is the population ageing, the percentage The challenges facing today’s health systems are predicted to live into very old age – beyond the age largely the same across the developed world. Five of 85 – is growing fast. forces of disruptions are coming together and could be regarded has having the force of an extinction Rise in chronic conditions event if not addressed. Not only is the population growing in size and longevity of life, the number of people living into 1. Greying patients (and providers). old age with chronic health conditions is increasing. Demographic changes means that there are now a By 2036 as much as 10% of patients will be living great number of older patients, in terms of physical beyond the age of 85 with seven or eight numbers as well as a greater percentage of the chronic conditions. population. Healthcare professionals are also older as a group. This massive growth in the elderly Ageing beyond our ability to support demographic is placing a greater demand on Our healthcare sector will need to stop being so health services. labour-intensive. Our ageing population means there won’t be the same percentage of people 2. Rise of chronic disease available to look after patients. We are already 25% of people now live into old age with chronic seeing staffing pressures today. For example NHS conditions. This can lead to complexity in Wales has significant shortages in cellular pathology treatments, such as managing patients with multiple and diagnostic radiology, both specialisms thought co-morbidities who rely on an increasingly large to be able to benefit from augmented or artificial cocktail of medication. intelligence. In NHS Wales today, we’re currently We invite you to join our Digital Health Eco-system today, please contact: [email protected] | 02920 467030 Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotics short of 70+ radiologists. Could image recognition (ie What do people think about AI and Robotics? normal / abnormal) help speed processes and help A recent global survey by PwC revealed a wide range our specialists focus on where they add most value? of views. A large percentage of people surveyed in the UK were not keen on the idea of using AI and Are AI and robotics the answer? robotics in healthcare. The World Economic Forum produced maps of challenges facing healthcare delivery systems and the potential of artificial intelligence and robotics. These maps indicate several links and suggest a potential wide-ranging impact of interconnectivity. Major variation in acceptability between nations Significant concerns about AI/Robotics in the UK We invite you to join our Digital Health Eco-system today, please contact: [email protected] | 02920 467030 Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotics Drilling deeper into the survey responses showed a split between the delivery and monitoring aspects of healthcare. A greater percentage of people were ok with the idea of care monitoring carried out by AI or a robot than the delivery of care. The UK’s negative responses towards AI and robotics University of Surrey and Surrey and Borders in healthcare do not reflect how much they are Partnership NHS Foundation Trust already in use in the NHS. It may be that the British The Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation public are unaware of how far this technology has Trust has recently been awarded £1million funding been adopted. to research how machine learning can be applied to an Internet of Things network in the homes of people Babylon Health with dementia. A refined alerting process is helping Babylon Health is one health provider offering an AI to minimise false alerts while monitoring is helping to online platform that “thinks like a doctor”. pick up health issues before they become problems. https://www.babylonhealth.com/ Early findings indicate that individuals involved in the trial demonstrated lower levels of depression, DeepMind and Moorfields Eye Hospital agitation, anxiety and irritability and were hospitalised In collaboration with