GAFAMS, STARTUPS & INNOVATION IN HEALTHCARE by PHARMAGEEK

DeepMind's artificial intelligence system appears to diagnose eye disease as accurately as leading human specialists, according to new research published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Developed by researchers from Moorfields Eye Hospital National Health Service Foundation Trust, University College London (UCL), and DeepMind Health, the AI system can read complex eye scans and refer patients for further treatment, recognizing more than 50 eye conditions including glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy.

In the study, the researchers found that the system made the right referral recommendation in more than 94% of cases after training on 14,884 scans.
The system — which also allows clinicians to scrutinize the recommendations made, enabling them to understand why certain results were generated — can be applied to different types of eye scanners, not just the one that it was trained on at the Moorfields trust. But before it can be used in clinical practice, it would have to be turned into a platform that would then need to go through clinical trials and regulatory approval.

If the technology is validated, however, DeepMind Health says clinicians at the trust will be able to use it for free across 30 of their UK hospitals and community clinics for an initial period of five years.