Emergency departments and minor injury units across Northern Ireland are now benefitting from AI that helps clinicians accurately and efficiently identify bone fractures, deployed rapidly and at scale through Sectra Amplifier Services.
Using the service, the Business Services Organisation’s NIPACS+ Programme has rolled out BoneView, a fracture detection algorithm developed by AI firm Gleamer, across all five of the region’s geographic Health and Social Care Trusts. The implementation is expected to help clinical teams examine more than 300,000 bone x-rays a year.
The deployment follows a successful trial in the Northern Health and Social Care Trust, where evaluation showed the algorithm helping busy ED professionals read x-rays more accurately, with more clinicians delivering correct diagnoses first time.
We have closely studied how our ED clinicians have benefitted from this innovative use of AI. This has helped to increase accuracy in the emergency department to a similar level seen in radiology. The result: fewer missed fractures, improved clinical decisions, enhanced care, and fewer patients being called back. This is not replacing radiologists or radiographers; it is an important way to help busy healthcare teams deliver efficient and effective care.
Deploying a regionalised AI application is another major milestone for the NIPACS+ Programme, one we are keen to build on. The RMIB AI subgroup is currently identifying need and assessing potential benefits for other medical imaging-related algorithms.
Further uses for AI being explored could aid in areas including chest x-rays and digital pathology, where potential exists to help clinicians detect diseases and cancers sooner.
