This summer, AIMed announced the launch of AIMedConnect, the new AIMed community group designed to connect the healthcare industry to facilitate collaboration and drive forward the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI), with Jvion, a key healthcare clinical AI company coming on board as a founding member.

Today (23 October), AIMed hosted a virtual launch event to provide an overview of AIMedConnect, marked by roundtable discussions on how to get started in AI, best practice to deploy AI, and ways to mitigate the impact of delayed care in the aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic.

Turning feedback into a reality

AIMedConnect extends AIMed’s vision and bring about a revolution that embraces a new paradigm of medicine and healthcare propelled by AI and related new technologies. As the press release had highlighted, AIMedConnect is a strategic platform for innovators to receive vital feedbacks from practicing clinicians and other stakeholders to ensure their new AI solutions are fit for purpose before commercialization.

On the other hand, clinicians who are looking for ways to get started in AI or already have advanced data science background can be exposed to all the pre-market creations and share their thoughts on how they will like these new technologies to be developed.

Freddy White, AIMed Chief Executive Officer said at the launch event that over the past four years, there were constant feedback coming from fellow clinicians that they would like to connect with one another; to learn about how to get started with AI; the projects that had been done, what are some of the latest AI-driven tools out there and so on. Developers also made a similar call to engage with clinicians, understand their challenges, and create solutions that truly improve their work and benefit patients.

So, he and Dr. Anthony Chang, AIMed Founder and Chief AI Officer at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) thought AIMed could take up the role in becoming the “middle person” and facilitate conversations between the groups and in turn, accelerate the adoption of AI in health and care.

Nevertheless, AIMed has a really busy schedule of events over the years, it was not until the COVID-19 pandemic which provided a window period for the platform to turn all these feedback into a reality. Dr. Chang added this is indeed a difficult time to keep in touch but as long as we keep an open mind, the pandemic will be a force which drives us together, especially the AIMed agenda has always been to embrace that human to human relationship.

A brief overview of the roundtable discussions

Three roundtable discussions were conducted simultaneously during the launch event. In Dr. Chang’s “Getting started on your journey in AI and healthcare” session, the discussion was framed around how to begin taking up or getting involved in AI. Dr. Chang’s advice was to look out for a problem in the hospital or areas where they are challenging clinicians and find a data source either within the hospital or locally where there are data scientists who will also like to engage in a healthcare project.

Dr. Chang encouraged clinicians who do not have data science background to do so in a step by step manner and to reiterate aspects of data science that they are unfamiliar with to move better. “See this as a on the job training,” he says. Dr. Chang added he is biased towards structured curriculum, particularly engaging in projects and building a network of mentors and peers. As such, he believes in the values of going back to school to learn about AI. He also swiftly updated everyone the book that he had just published and the activities that the newly established American Board of AI Medicine is going to conduct on regular basis.

Consultant radiologist Dr. Shaista Meraj and AIMed Director of Content Alexis May headed a separate session on “understanding the adoption of AI in healthcare organization”. Some of the questions raised by guests included the return of investment (ROI) for AI deployment, infrastructure to support the use of AI, the quality of research around AI, whether radiologists will be replaced by technology and so on. With that, Dr. Meraj emphasized on the importance to involve all stakeholders in the AI adoption discussion and let everyone realize the benefits AI will bring.

Dr. Meraj also mentioned it is clinicians’ job to engage patients and understand their level of acceptance. Quality AI research will build and reinforce trust in AI in the long run. May added the need for more public education as there has been some anxiety around young doctors who are not willing to specialize in radiology as they are afraid the field will eventually be replaced by technology. “AI is not something to be scared of but to embrace… why can’t we look at AI as a colleague,” Dr. Meraj replied. Dr. Chang said he is confident that in 10 years’ time, there will be more radiologists because of what AI is doing to the field rather than the opposite.

Last but not least, Dr. John Frownfelter, Chief Medical Informatics Officer at Jvion led a session on “Mitigating the impact of delayed care and guiding appropriate utilization in the COVID aftermath” in which he talked about how the pandemic has stopped patients, especially those with chronic diseases to seek help. The role of telemedicine in mitigating it and the possibility of using analytics to assist physicians in prioritizing the sickest patients shall receive care first.

AIMedConnect is now available on Apple App Store and Google Play. For more information, please click here.

*

Author Bio

Hazel Tang A science writer with data background and an interest in the current affair, culture, and arts; a no-med from an (almost) all-med family. Follow on Twitter.