Taipei Medical University Hospital on Dec. 7 signed a contract with Taiwan AI Labs to collaborate on introducing an artificial intelligence (AI) system that would provide an earlier warning for sepsis in its intensive care units (ICUs).
The five-year contract with the research organization was signed by hospital superintendent Chen Ray-jade (陳瑞杰) and Taiwan AI Labs founder Ethan Tu (杜奕瑾).
The first phase of the collaboration aims to improve the hospital’s “electronic dashboard” ICU (TED-ICU) by integrating an AI system that could automatically predict the early development of sepsis and alert the resident medical team.
Photo: Wu Liang-yi, Taipei Times
The health conditions of ICU patients can change drastically, and sepsis is a life-threatening condition that occurs in about 437 patients per 100,000 globally, Chen said, adding that studies suggest that sepsis causes about one-third of all deaths in US hospitals.
Previously, sepsis could only be detected after its onset, but after the hospital last year introduced the TED-ICU, medical teams can predict the risk of sepsis about four hours before it occurs, Chen said.
The system works by automatically collecting, integrating, analyzing and keeping a record of ICU patients’ physiological information, the hospital said.
The collaboration with Taiwan AI Labs aims to further improve the dashboard with AI, allowing a real-time alert as soon as it detects the risk of sepsis, hopefully even more than four hours in advance.
Tu said that after his mother passed away from sepsis last year, he began thinking about how to use AI to interpret real-time physiological information to reduce the sepsis mortality rate.
The lab in September developed an AI sepsis detection system and allowed it to learn from the hospital’s data for two months, Tu said, adding that so far, its detection accuracy is at about 85 percent and can hopefully enter clinical use soon.
The hospital said it hopes to introduce AI to learn the medical records of people injured in falls to develop a mechanism to predict high-risk groups for such injuries and to analyze their causes to improve care.
‘LONE WOLF’: The suspect was difficult to locate, as he did not use a cellphone, did not contact family and often lived in abandoned sites or parks, police said Taipei police on Thursday morning arrested a man accused of numerous burglaries and at least 14 incidents of sexual assault spanning more than 20 years, in what might be the nation’s most notorious crime spree in recent years. Sixty-year-old Tu Ming-lang (涂明朗) — who was yesterday placed in judicial detention, after a judge determined he was a flight risk without a fixed address — faces multiple charges of sexual assault and burglary, police said. A task force comprised of various law enforcement agencies arrested Tu as part of an investigation into an April 28 burglary in Daan District (大安), in which a
Ninth graders were asked to define “trolling” on this year’s standardized exam, reflecting efforts to make the test better reflect real-life situations. Adjustments to this year’s Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students were revealed on Sunday, after the last cohort of students completed the test over the weekend. The Ministry of Education solicited feedback about the test from teachers, who approved of the new question in the English portion. Not only was question No. 20 “very much in line with real-life situations,” but it also used a new style in which students were asked to ascertain the correct dictionary definition based
Taiwan is on alert for monkeypox, a rare viral disease that has caused 87 infections in 11 countries over the past three weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Saturday. The WHO on Friday convened an emergency session to discuss a sudden outbreak of monkeypox in North America and Europe. Since the beginning of this month, 87 confirmed cases and 28 possible cases have been identified in 11 countries. The countries with the highest case counts are England with 29 cases, and Portugal and Spain with 23 each. Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease occurring primarily in the tropical rainforest areas
ADAPTING: The CECC said the policy change would happen this week at the earliest, while PCR testing stations would be used to diagnose people and prescribe drugs The general public would be able to use a positive rapid test result that has been confirmed by a doctor for COVID-19 diagnosis starting later this week at the soonest, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 79,441 new local infections and 53 deaths. The center on Saturday announced that it was expanding the rapid test diagnosis policy to people living in indigenous townships and outlying islands, starting today. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, yesterday said the policy might be further expanded to include “all people” this week, at the soonest. He
RSS