AI-Powered Ophthalmic Diagnosis: Huawei and Partners Scale New Heights in Smart Healthcare

Original Title: AI Empowers Ophthalmic Diagnosis and Treatment, Huawei and Partners Reach New Heights in Smart Healthcare Source: Internet

Fundus examination serves as a crucial window for detecting early indicators of major chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease, and Parkinson’s disease. However, constrained by the uneven distribution of high-quality medical resources in China, many patients in the early stages of chronic diseases miss the optimal treatment window due to a lack of advanced medical solutions. As population aging accelerates, the shortage of medical resources has become increasingly acute. Providing the healthcare system with low-cost, high-performance, and widely connected diagnostic and therapeutic equipment and solutions has emerged as the key to breaking through the bottlenecks in China's healthcare sector.

Taking the ophthalmic diagnostic and therapeutic equipment market as an example, premium-priced imported high-end ophthalmic medical devices still account for over 80% of the market share to date. Encouragingly, through the synergistic collaboration of domestic equipment manufacturers, AI healthcare solution providers, and the clinical medical community, China's domestically produced ophthalmic diagnostic and therapeutic equipment is breaking foreign monopolies. By leveraging leading intelligent capabilities to achieve leapfrog advancement, these devices are gaining increasingly widespread application in clinical practice.

First Domestically Produced "Cutting-Edge" Fundus Imaging Device Unveiled

On September 17, the "Application Scenario Innovation Project", a tripartite collaboration among Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Suzhou Microclear Medical Instruments Co., Ltd., and Peking Union Medical College Hospital, was officially unveiled at the closing ceremony of the 2021 "Huawei Cloud Cup" Artificial Intelligence Application Innovation Competition held in Suzhou Industrial Park.

Leveraging the AI-assisted diagnostic system for fundus lesions independently developed by Suzhou Microclear, integrating Huawei Cloud's AI and connectivity technologies, and combining the top-tier clinical expertise of Peking Union Medical College Hospital, this project delivers a high-quality, China-developed ophthalmic diagnosis and treatment solution for general hospitals and primary healthcare institutions across China. This initiative not only represents the highest achievement of this edition of the AI Application Innovation Competition, but also signifies that domestically produced high-end ophthalmic diagnostic and therapeutic devices, integrated with next-generation information technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing, are leading smart ophthalmology into a new phase of development.

At the project signing ceremony, Chen Youxin, Director of the Department of Ophthalmology, Professor, and Doctoral Supervisor at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, delivered a speech titled "Application of AI and Telemedicine in Ophthalmology and Chronic Disease Prevention and Control".

“The shortage of per capita medical resources, coupled with the long-standing difficulties and high costs of accessing medical care, has been a fundamental reality of China’s healthcare system. Many patients miss the opportunity to control disease progression due to the time, financial costs, and geographical barriers associated with regular follow-up visits. Today, innovations in 'AI + Healthcare' provide powerful tools for enhancing chronic disease intervention and promoting the equitable distribution of medical resources. The fundus angiography system developed by Suzhou Microclear Medical Instruments Co., Ltd. enables imaging over a wider field of view. Coupled with AI-powered proactive disease identification, it has significantly improved the accuracy and efficiency of our ophthalmic examinations. Furthermore, remote fundus laser treatment systems, empowered by AI and 5G technology, make it possible for top-tier physicians in major cities to deliver timely diagnosis and treatment to patients thousands of miles away,” said Chen Youxin.

Powered by Huawei's cloud computing and artificial intelligence solutions as its "smart brain," this independently developed AI-assisted diagnostic system for fundus lesions delivers high-definition imaging with ultra-wide-angle capture and fully automatic stitching. It assists doctors in real-time visualization of peripheral fundus lesions and enables precise diagnosis and treatment even under ultra-low illumination conditions with pupils as small as 1.5 mm. By simply, rapidly, and losslessly restoring the true texture of the images, the system provides ophthalmologists with information more conducive to accurate diagnosis, thereby reducing the incidence of missed diagnoses and misdiagnoses.

Smart Healthcare Drives Leapfrog Development in the Medical and Health Sector

Currently, next-generation information technologies continue to drive the digital transformation across diverse industries, with cloud computing, artificial intelligence, big data, and other technologies being continuously deployed and applied across myriad scenarios in various sectors. As the public's demand for healthcare services becomes increasingly diversified, how to reduce the burden on medical resources, and within the “`Massive Data`” and “medical pain points” has become the core of smart healthcare infrastructure development. Leveraging its leading cloud service capabilities in cloud-network integration, big data, and artificial intelligence, Huawei Cloud collaborates with premier healthcare partners to jointly develop solutions in medical imaging, pharmaceutical sciences, gene sequencing, digital hospitals, medical consortiums, and more.Innovative MedicalApplication and service system, facilitating the digital transformation of China's healthcare industry and advancing the national public health and wellness cause to a new level.

As a premier center for clinical medicine in China, Peking Union Medical College Hospital has actively advanced digital transformation in recent years. By forging extensive strategic partnerships with information technology innovation enterprises such as Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., it has integrated digital technologies like artificial intelligence and big data into application scenarios including medical imaging, telemedicine, smart building management, patient health management, and medical research platforms. Leveraging AI applications, the hospital can delegate a large number of procedural and preparatory diagnostic and treatment steps to automated systems, thereby enabling its high-quality medical resources to deliver value with greater efficiency.

Professor Chen Youxin stated: "The application of AI and internet technologies holds great promise for the leapfrog development of future healthcare, and successful examples worldwide in AI-assisted pharmaceutical R&D and clinical diagnosis and treatment demonstrate that smart healthcare has a bright future."

China is systematically advancing the widespread adoption of telemedicine and nationwide health databases. In the next phase, scenario-based smart healthcare solutions empowered by digital technologies will break through regional constraints on medical resources, significantly enhancing nationwide chronic disease screening, geriatric disease intervention, and population health data management. This will subsequently drive a transformative leap in the national healthcare and wellness sector, delivering tangible benefits and a genuine sense of well-being to the public.