Artificial intelligence will probe health records to alert South Australians at risk

YOU’VE heard of Big Brother — South Australia is about to get “Big Doctor”, cloud-based artificial intelligence that analyses our health and intervenes when it spots something amiss.

Dr Philip Tideman says SA doctors are applying sophisticated IT techniques to accumulate data that assists in clinical decisions.

YOU’VE heard of Big Brother — South Australia is about to get “Big Doctor”, cloud-based artificial intelligence that analyses our health and intervenes when it spots something amiss.

A team of Country Health SA clinicians and South Australian IT experts have won a $340,000 grant to develop the artificial intelligence medic with the goal of early intervention when it finds people at risk.

The Federal Government grant announced today at the AusBiotech Conference in Adelaide is to develop an Australian-first cloud-based artificial intelligence digital health platform.

Country Health SA’s Integrated Cardiovascular Clinical Network (iCCnet) will develop an AI platform that collates clinical data and automatically assesses peoples’ health risks based on tests put into the health database.

This includes when they are presenting to hospital as well as tests done at home and put into the system.

Clinical Director at iCCnet, Dr Phil Tideman, said for the past decade Country Health SA’s iCCNet team has been working on developing clinical databases that collect data in real time — including blood test and ECG results.

“What we’re trying to do now is apply sophisticated IT techniques to bring data together, which will enable us to make better clinical decisions,” Dr Tideman said.

“By bringing the data together in a cloud-based platform, we can continuously monitor patients’ health risk while they’re at home or in the Emergency Department.

“IT applications that automatically monitor the data will aim to highlight those who need early intervention, allowing our doctors and specialists to act before a health issue becomes more serious, aiming to keep people out of hospital where possible.”

Country Health SA chief executive Maree Geraghty congratulated the iCCnet team on their success, saying it was acknowledgment of their groundbreaking work.

“This will improve patient outcomes for people, initially in rural and regional SA, and then eventually around the country and potentially the globe,” Ms Geraghty said.

“The sustainability of the health care system relies on improving patients’ ability to safely manage their conditions in the community, and this requires smart technology — such as artificial intelligence — and I look forward to hearing about the great results this digital health platform will bring to patients.”

iCCNet has been recognised in the past for its innovation and is nationally recognised for many of its programs and research, including achieving a 22 per cent reduction in 30-day mortality for country heart attack patients.

This means country patients now have the same survival rates as metropolitan patients.