In the five steps from door to reception desk my photo has been taken, my face saved in the system and an ID number assigned. For the rest of my time in Great Ormond Street Hospital’s new high-tech unit in London, which opens today, I am followed by an AI.
Video screens show my head in a red box, annotated with a score showing how confident the computer is that I am who it thinks I am.
Tracking systems like this are just one of the technologies being tested at GOSH’s DRIVE (Digital, Research, Informatics and Virtual Environments) unit, a collaboration between the UK’s National Health Service, University College London and several tech companies, including Microsoft, Samsung and UK chip-maker Arm.
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The DRIVE unit is part of GOSH but it will not provide real clinical care. It will be a place where engineers can interact with patients, doctors and nurses – sometimes role-playing actual scenarios – to find out what new tech can and can’t do before rolling it out in real clinical settings across the NHS.
“It’s a digital sandpit,” says Noel Hurley at Arm. “It lets us experiment and play and build and break things in a safe environment.”
Arm’s chips power most of the world’s smartphones but it is also involved in healthcare, providing the hardware for many medical devices. The company now wants to embed AI in those devices so that automated decision-making can take place quickly without having to send data back and forth over the internet. Not only does this keep sensitive patient data more secure but it also bypasses creaky hospital networks, says Hurley.
Doctor AI
Medical AI has made great strides in diagnosing conditions, such as cancer and eye disease. But Arm is more interested in the smaller tasks. By streamlining the simple actions that are performed in hospitals thousands of times a day – such as registering and tracking people’s movements – it hopes to free up more time for patient care.
Eventually it wants its computer vision system to recognise objects as well as people, tracking everything in a hospital that moves, from surgeons to surgical instruments. Basic logistics takes up a lot of time, says Hurley.
The NHS has a reputation for being slow to make use of new technology. “In the UK 70 per cent of people have a smartphone,” says Shankar Sridharan, clinical director at DRIVE. “But only 5 per cent use them to interact with the NHS.” Lots of people are developing apps across the NHS, he says. But without a single place to bring them together the work can be chaotic.
Since GOSH is a children’s hospital, with most patients under 10 years old, there will be special focus on how tech can improve the care of younger people. There are several projects underway, including a big blue whale in the main entrance and rabbits hopping about the wards – visible only to those with an augmented reality app. Others are testing a Jurassic Park themed virtual reality experience as a way to distract children during treatment.
In the next few months, kids will also be able to explore a replica of the hospital built in the video game Minecraft before they arrive, helping them to feel less frightened about an upcoming visit. “I’d rather they come in and complain that the hospital doesn’t look quite like it does in Minecraft than be scared about have a blood test,” says Sridharan.
One project already up and running is Project Fizzyo, which helps children with cystic fibrosis put up with their physiotherapy by making the physio device they have to squeeze into a game controller. The better you get at doing physio, the better you are at the game, says Neil Sebire, managing director at DRIVE.
Hurley also wants to develop computer vision tech for monitoring patients’ emotional states, which can have a big impact on recovery. “Happier people recover more quickly,” says Hurley.
An AI monitoring patients around the clock could spot things doctors and nurses would miss. “It might notice that a child wakes up in the night and quietly cries,” says Hurley. Carers would then know to help.
Hospital staff are also asking the young patients themselves what they would like in a hospital. “Most of them want robots,” says Sebire. They may soon get what they want. Two robots are being developed that can tell stories inspired by objects placed in front of them.
“Children are not limited by what they think tech can do,” says Sebire. “A 10 year old also has no issues with telling you an app is rubbish.”
