Diagnosing and managing COVID-19 with ALFABETO
Diagnosing and managing COVID-19 with ALFABETO
The COVID-19 health emergency which is currently affecting the world has highlighted the need to accelerate change in patient care strategies with a twofold goal: reducing hospital admissions while guaranteeing a better and more accurate service for citizens. Currently, technology makes a significant contribution to facilitating the entire care setting.
The ALFABETO solution fits into this context and its main objective is to assist healthcare professionals in the initial triage phase at the patient's home through an objective assessment of the severity of the illness and a predictive analysis of its possible progression in the short to medium-term. ALFABETO supports the physician with defining the care strategy to be adopted based on evidence extracted from data using machine learning algorithms.
ALFABETO is developed on a software platform, integrated with diagnostic tools, based on Artificial Intelligence components and aimed at supporting the diagnostic process, sharing clinical information in real-time with the different healthcare professionals involved in the process, and predicting the progression of the illness.
The possibility of sharing information in real-time among the different professionals that virtually make up the medical team, as well as the support of Machine Learning predictive models, are essential in helping operators define diagnoses and treatments, establishing whether to care for patients at home or start the hospital admissions process, and possibly generating a “pandemic waiting list”.
The ALFABETO solution is developed on a platform of innovative tools and services capable of offering a comprehensive view of the patient, as well as a rapid and objective response for their treatment and interaction with healthcare professionals. More specifically, ALFABETO integrates all data sources, it makes it possible to carry out a chest X-ray at the patient's home, it supports the healthcare team by suggesting “dynamic triaging”, it uses Machine Learning models to develop predictive disease progression analyses, and it can interface with Patient Monitoring Apps to acquire/share context data to support predictive analysis models.
This is an innovative product which combines the following elements in a single platform:
A.I. techniques, specifically neural networks for clinical image analysis
Radiomics models that improve the clinical picture of the patient for a better understanding of their health status
Real-time integration of heterogeneous clinical data sources for a comprehensive overall picture of the patient’s true clinical situation
Integration with collaboration tools for communication among healthcare professionals
ALFABETO represents process innovation as it allows major innovations in the home diagnosis and triage process for Coronavirus outbreaks:
It allows comprehensive triage to be carried out at the patient's home, thus avoiding travel
It connects different professionals in real-time, even though they are not physically present
It allows a unified and contextual view of processes normally performed at different times (e.g., GP, home visit, diagnostic tests, access to the ER – Emergency Room).
The tool is innovative from a service point of view, as it guarantees:
Diagnostic services at the patient's home
Support for real-time reporting (in relation to the priority level defined by the algorithm) directly to the local healthcare facility
Optimized and appropriate admissions to the ER
Hospital admissions only if actually necessary
Improvement of home management of Covid-19 patients
Optimization of hospital resources in a pandemic setting
Diagnosis carried out essentially in “real-time”
Accuracy and rapid decision-making in the assessment of the Covid-19 patient
Reduction in radiology examination reporting time
Laife Reply combines the Reply Group's high expertise in innovative technologies (Big Data, Cloud Computing, Digital Media and Internet of Things) and clinical/healthcare know-how to create Artificial Intelligence platforms specifically targeted to the healthcare world, with the aim of strengthening the processes of medical diagnosis, supporting clinical decision-making and, ultimately, improving patients’ lives.
ALFABETO stems from the combination of the specializations and skills of three partners to create a synergy capable of providing a concrete and rapid solution in line with the objectives of the field of intervention. Highly specialized research and industrial institutions in the fields of Medicine and Artificial Intelligence are working on the solution, which is funded by the Covid line 2 tender issued by Regione Lombardia.
Laife Reply specializes in the prototyping and development of software solutions based on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms in the clinical/healthcare field and has undisputed experience and expertise in clinical data and document management.
University of Pavia – The Department of Clinical Surgical, Diagnostic and Pediatric Sciences and Department of Internal Medicine and Medical Therapeutics for the multidisciplinary expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of Covid 19 and high number of specific case histories within their clinical activity.
ICS Maugeri IRCCS for the ongoing admission of Covid 19 patients from the San Matteo hospital and other facilities and for the experience acquired in AI systems for Diagnostic Imaging.