AIMED TALKS AUSTRALIA, BREAKFAST BRIEFING, SYDNEY, AUGUST 2019 Prof Enrico Coiera, Director Centre For Health Informatics
Director NHMRC Centre For Research Excellence In Digital Health
Australian Institute Of Health Innovation.
AIMed Australia hosted a breakfast briefing on August 16th, presented by clinicians for clinicians and anyone interested in propelling AI and other innovations in Australian healthcare for better health outcomes for patients. The briefing was hosted by PwC at their Sydney location.
The pace at which AI is transforming healthcare is accelerating as computing power becomes more affordable, health related data becomes more accessible, and machine learning algorithms proliferate. Professor Enrico Coiera, director of the Centre for Health Informatics, and lead of the Australian Alliance for AI in Healthcare is trained in medicine and has a PhD in AI. During his presentation at the AIMed briefing Coiera noted the rapid rise of FDA approvals for AI infused healthcare solutions – one in 2014, four in 2016, six in 2017 and 23 last year.
“There is a rapid growth in certification and an explosion in commercialisation,” according to Coiera who said that the US investment in AI for healthcare is tipped to reach $US6.6 billion by 2021. Professor Enrico Coiera, director of the Centre for Health Informatics, and lead of the Australian Alliance for AI.
In his view the greatest benefit will come not from even more technology breakthroughs, but from the judicious application of existing AI capability. That, he said needed careful consideration. Prof Coiera offered the example of a well-regarded research paper which revealed that an artificially intelligent diagnosis system had proven equal or better than humans in identifying thyroid cancer. Rather than racing to replace clinicians with a diagnostic platform however, Coiera said practitioners needed to consider other important factors; although the rate of thyroid cancer diagnosis has risen dramatically, the death rate has remained static. The question that needed to be addressed, he said, is not ‘Should we use AI to diagnose thyroid cancer?’– rather ‘Do we need to treat all cases?’. AI could perhaps help determine the answer to that more relevant question. Coiera said that a better use of AI was to find a way to embed it into the ‘last mile’ of healthcare where it would deliver the greatest benefits to both the patient and the healthcare system. But he lamented the relatively slow progress of AI in healthcare in Australia. While the UK’s National Health System has earmarked a further £250 million to establish a national AI Laboratory, on top of £1 billion already committed to the area, Australia had nothing in the pipeline he said. Australia also faces unique challenges associated with the healthcare responsibility divide between Commonwealth and States.
The lack of a national government-led AI in healthcare initiative had prompted the establishment of the Australian Alliance for AI in Health according to Coiera.
The Alliance’s four flagship areas of focus are:
Ethics, safety and quality
Workforce reskilling
Consumer healthcare
Precision healthcare
It also runs a special interest group exploring issues associated with cyber security in AI infused healthcare. The Alliance is an official partner for the AIMed Summit.
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