Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly present in medicine. Digital algorithms can enhance treatment through the analysis of radiological results, imaging diagnostics, among others. However, vast databases are required. A network of digital medicine centres will assist in fully utilising this potential.
“Digital medicine centres are consortia of several organisations, such as a hospital, a biobank and a university. They have been created to implement a project under the Medical Research Agency, which involves collecting patient consents for processing their data and genetic data for research and development purposes, creating a database for research and development processes and utilising this database by researchers and scholars in Poland,” says Ligia Kornowska, Managing Director of the Polish Hospital Federation and leader of the AI in Health Coalition, to the Newseria Biznes news agency.
Last year, the Medical Research Agency conducted a competition for the creation and development of Regional Centres for Digital Medicine (RCMC). In total, over PLN 500 million will go to 18 units nationwide to digitise clinical research, enabling the maximum use of health data. This funding is allocated for building infrastructure that allows access to substantial, reliable data while maintaining control over the sources that generate it. The initiative also aims to create the human and system resources necessary to establish a network of RCMCs.
“At the moment, we are essentially starting the project and continuing to collect patient consents,” says Ligia Kornowska. “The centres will allow the collection of medical data not only from medical records but also genetic data derived from patient tissues. This means that we will be able to create a broad patient database containing various data about them. Data is today the basis for the development of medicine, the foundation for the development of any new technology in medicine.”
As the MRA emphasized while announcing the competition results, this is a critical point in the discussion on data security and the proper use of information in health protection. The creation of RCMCs is expected to not only improve the efficacy of patient treatment and their access to innovative therapies but also contribute to the development of IT solutions in digital medicine that allow for the analysis of medical data or facilitate doctors’ work. Data quoted by the agency from IDC suggest that by 2025, the growth rate of data generation in the healthcare sector will exceed that of any other industry.
“With such data, we will be able to develop, among other things, artificial intelligence algorithms as well as predictive analytics algorithms. We will be able to support personalised medicine,” the expert from the Polish Federation of Hospitals lists.
The “Opening Report. Digital Innovation as the Health Savior”, authored by the Polish Federation of Hospitals and the AI in Health Coalition, lists eight opportunities digital technologies offer the sector. The first is to enhance the quality of diagnosis and treatment in health care. AI, with its ability to process massive amounts of data and discover patterns that might elude human attention, aids healthcare professionals in quicker and more precise disease detection, analysing large amounts of medical data, and creating personalised treatment plans. Among other opportunities listed in the report are the implementation of new forms of diagnostics and treatment aimed directly at the patient (digital therapeutic applications), health profiling, i.e., creating an effective predictive mechanism powered by patient data that would direct targeted health promotion communication to them, opening access to medical data for R&D purposes, integrating data from wearable devices for patient monitoring, and enhancing cybersecurity in healthcare.
“Among medical specialisations, the vast majority of such solutions are applied to support imaging diagnostics, i.e., radiology. However, we see growing popularity of AI solutions that support the hospital’s administrative and management processes, such as algorithms to assist in registering patients or scheduling their appointments,” says Ligia Kornowska.
Data quoted by report authors show that about one-fifth of healthcare organisations worldwide have already adopted AI models for their healthcare solutions, and AI implementation has reduced doctors’ time spent on administrative tasks by approximately 20%. Approximately 7% of hospitals in Poland use AI algorithms, primarily in radiology. Global studies indicate that this significantly shortens the waiting time for radiological analysis of chest x-rays and also reduces the risk of false-negative results.
One of the challenges associated with implementing AI and other technologies in healthcare is preparing staff to work with these tools. According to the expert, there is a group of people who are interested in this topic and want to utilise new technologies, but the awareness is still inadequate.
“We should make every effort to provide training and materials to both medical and non-medical staff working in hospitals. These materials and training would increase staff knowledge about what AI is and is not, what digital technologies we can use in medicine, and how not to use them so that it is effective for the patient and safe,” explains the Managing Director of the Polish Federation of Hospitals.
Another challenge is the lack of stable public funding for medical services using artificial intelligence algorithms.
“Such AI algorithms are being developed in Polish healthcare and are sometimes even used in a pilot form, but there’s no system solution to make every examination, if cost-effective of course, to be evaluated by artificial intelligence algorithms,” says Ligia Kornowska.“Speaking about other digital innovations, one of the main blockers is still the readiness or rather inadequate technological preparation of healthcare entities in terms of maintaining electronic medical documentation.”
