— How is artificial intelligence (AI) used in domestic medicine today?
— While the medical community was previously skeptical of the idea of using artificial intelligence, the majority now understand that it is a groundbreaking technology that should be used and implemented as widely as possible. Attitudes towards artificial intelligence in the medical environment are changing very rapidly.
Two years ago it was perceived as a miracle, no one knew how to use it or what it was needed for. Currently, about 35.6% of doctors are familiar with AI, and 89% believe that doctors should be involved in the development of AI to further increase its use.
The first experiments on the use of artificial intelligence in domestic medicine began in 2019. Active in our country today Work On the implementation of medical solutions using artificial intelligence technologies in healthcare.
The development of digital healthcare is evolving rapidly. Artificial intelligence is actively used to analyze information from electronic medical records, visual studies, medical decision-making systems, and diagnoses.
The optimal situation for piloting and implementing AI-based services in Russian healthcare has developed. We actively collaborate with the medical community and healthcare organizers, creating and developing products in close collaboration with medical professionals.
— Can you tell us about Sber’s high-tech solutions for healthcare? Which ones are most in demand?
— The digital medical solutions developed by Sber and its partner companies are divided into two blocks: for specialist doctors and people, for you and me. And all digital solutions use artificial intelligence models.
Sber has developed AI services for healthcare to help make diagnoses, automatically fill in medical documents with voice, and decode medical images such as computed tomography, x-ray, mammography to diagnose diseases.
For example, today many of our doctor partners use the services of Voice2Med, the MDG group of companies. The solution converts the doctor’s voice into text, allowing you to dictate a description of the study and saving doctors time. More than 210 thousand medical protocols for radiology studies have been completed in Moscow clinics and hospitals using speech recognition technology. Dictionaries have been developed for doctors of nine specialties, voice input is used in 69 regions of the country.
There is an excellent response to this from doctors in the older age category. I think that in the future all medical AI solutions will be based on voice control and we will practically move away from the keyboard.
One of Sber’s medical AI solutions is the “TOP-3” digital medical assistant, which uses artificial intelligence to make preliminary diagnoses based on patient complaints. The model suggests three most likely preliminary diagnoses. The final decision regarding additional examination and further treatment always belongs to the doctor. The service was jointly developed by the Moscow government, Sber Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and SberMedII. It has been used in all adult clinics in the capital since 2020. During this time, Moscow doctors made preliminary diagnoses of more than 12 million using an assistant.
We went further and, together with the Moscow government, began analyzing data from electronic medical records over the last two years and created a digital assistant model to help make a definitive diagnosis. The purpose of the service is to additionally “insure” the doctor by providing him with an independent second opinion in case of suspicion of one of the 95 most common and important diagnoses that require clinical observation. The final decision is always made by the doctor.
In the future, we plan to expand the database of diagnostic options, so that with the help of a digital assistant it will be possible to cover 98% of primary outpatient visits of adult Muscovites. All our solutions and developments have begun to be piloted and used in country regions.
Another driver of the digitalization of healthcare is telemedicine. The service is operated by the medical company SberZdorovye (part of the Sber healthcare sector).
With its help, you can get an online consultation with an on-call therapist or pediatrician in a few minutes and understand what to do if a particular problem arises.
In Russia, our company SberZdorovye has become one of the leaders in the field of remote monitoring of patients with chronic non-communicable diseases such as arterial hypertension and diabetes. Monitoring projects are successfully carried out on the basis of various medical organizations in more than 60 regions of Russia. Robotic search and smart devices are used for this purpose.
We launched the “Smart Monitoring” service. It includes a tonometer and remote monitoring by a cardiologist under the SberHealth brand. The device takes blood pressure measurements and transmits them to the doctor. If the readings deviate from the norm, the doctor immediately calls him, adjusts the treatment prescribed to him or recommends calling an ambulance. This technology has shown very good results.
The health conditions of 76 percent of patients who are followed up due to high blood pressure return to normal after 30 days. The timely assistance they provided made it possible to reduce the number of ambulance calls and hospitalizations by 70%. Among those observed, the death rate decreased by 30%.
More than 285 thousand people participated in remote viewing in 3.5 years. SberHealth solutions help implement the National Health Service project to reduce deaths from circulatory system diseases.
Just measuring blood pressure regularly in the morning and evening and following the doctor’s recommendations will allow you to normalize blood pressure measurements and save people’s lives.
“Smart health camera”: Sber takes the next step in the development of online medicine. Nowadays, remote consultation becomes more informative for the doctor and more useful and effective for the patient.
We started a new service on the eve of our traditional Sber Health Days event. According to SberHealth statistics, more than half of online visits to doctors are related to acute respiratory viral infections (ARVI) and their complications in ENT organs. To help patients and make remote doctor consultations more efficient, you can now use: “Smart health camera”. Using it, you can take photos or video recordings of the respiratory organs (throat and nose, as well as ears and skin). The device syncs with the SberHealth mobile app on your smartphone and transmits photos and videos to your doctor to evaluate your condition and make further recommendations.
Remote consultation using the Smart Camera gives users the opportunity to quickly receive help and recommendations for acute situations without leaving home, at a time convenient for them and without unnecessary travel. The solution can also help reduce the burden on primary care clinics and minimize the spread of viral infections by reducing the number of contacts in medical institutions.
Another of Sber’s MedTech services solves the problem of irregular taking of medications prescribed by the doctor. According to statistics, only 30% of patients receive treatment as per doctor’s recommendations, the rest skip or stop taking medications. That’s why we added a new function to the SBER EAPTEKA application – “Pill Box”. With its help, you can create a reminder that will send notification that it is time to take the medicine by scanning the QR code of the medicine. And if the packaging runs out, there is another useful function – “First Aid Kit”, which will immediately remind you to order a new one.
We currently have several dozen AI solutions in development for healthcare.
— Sber has introduced a single online space in its app where all health-related services are gathered. Tell us in more detail what happened.
— Now this is one of the most interesting and creative aspects. The “health room” can be used from the SberBank Online mobile application or through Sber smart devices using the Salyut virtual assistant. This could then become a full-fledged human AI assistant for any health-related need.
In the “Health Room”, in addition to doctor appointments and examinations, you can purchase medicines and health products at any time of the day. The “Symptom Analysis” service, which uses artificial intelligence technologies, will select up to three doctors from different specialties according to the symptoms specified by the person and help you make an appointment instantly, if the user does not know which doctor to consult. . Additionally, the “Health Room” offers education and meditation services, as well as listening to podcasts about health, beauty and medicine.
We are actively developing this project, adding functionality, and today tens of thousands of our customers are already using this service.
— What are your predictions for the development of services and the practical application of artificial intelligence in Russia in the next 5-10 years?
— Today, artificial intelligence already acts like a doctor’s assistant: it suggests possible diagnostic options. However, the final decision is always in the doctor’s hands.
Another direction in the development of artificial intelligence is related to solutions that enable a person to better understand his body and control his condition. These are devices that detect changes in the body using photosensitive elements (fitness bracelets and other smart devices with functions for measuring blood pressure, pulse, oxygen levels and physical activity).
The main direction of interaction with artificial intelligence in medicine is towards creating an artificial intelligence assistant.
It will be multi-channel and will be able to work in different formats: audio, text. The artificial intelligence assistant will adapt to a particular doctor and remember his field of activity and interests.
This will be a completely new technology, currently unparalleled in medicine. Although we are not yet fully aware of the possibilities it opens, we are on the verge of a revolution that artificial intelligence will create in medicine. Medicine is rapidly becoming digital.
Previously, people just said that they did not feel well, then they learned to take blood tests, measure blood pressure, and then, thanks to smart devices, we will be able to monitor the condition of our body around the clock, which will significantly increase blood pressure. life expectancy level.
An emerging use of AI in medicine is as a large language model, or AI assistant, to which additional models are connected that respond to human health-related queries. Moreover, in the future, this will be interaction in a proactive mode, where the artificial intelligence assistant will provide recommendations on health promotion, medical diagnostics and consultations based on the analysis of incoming data.