HEALTH AND WELLBEING
The bedside manner of artificial intelligence
When AI expert Professor Adrian Hopgood met colorectal cancer surgeon Professor Jim Khan at a University of Portsmouth function , he was inspired by the AI applications he could see for improved patient care . Ever on the lookout for practical uses for machinelearning technology and impressed by the quality of Professor Khan ’ s dataset , he recognised the opportunity to work together to improve outcomes for bowel cancer patients .
“ Jim explained that he ’ d been working at the Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust for many years and he had comprehensive anonymised records of all patients who had been through surgery ,” says Professor Hopgood , who is Professor of Intelligent Systems at the University .
“ We got talking about how we could combine his expertise and data with the University ’ s AI expertise . And as the clinical expert , he steered us to what would be useful to model to predict and achieve better health outcomes .”
Patients and hospital administrators alike benefit significantly if they know , in advance , the likely length of a hospital stay , the likelihood of readmission , and the expected life span after surgery . Professor Hopgood worked with Research Fellow ( now University of Portsmouth lecturer ) Dr Shamsul Masum , processing Professor Khan ’ s datasets and running statistical analyses to identify patterns indicative of these factors . With this information , they developed an algorithm that can predict , with considerable accuracy , the length of stay , the probability or otherwise
16 ISSUE 04 / 2022