Trusts turn to artificial intelligence to tackle staff shortage

Two East Midlands trusts are trialling the use of artificial intelligence tools to diagnose breast cancer in a bid to mitigate the national shortage of radiologists.

 

United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust and Nottingham University Hospitals Trust are the only two trusts in the country to take part in the trial, which is a collaboration between the East Midlands Radiology Consortium (EMRAD) and two UK-based AI companies Faculty and Kheiron Medical.

Kheiron Medical’s mammography intelligent assessment tool has already been trialled in Hungary but is new to the UK. The first stage of the trial will involve assessing old scans from ULHT and NUH to establish how accurate AI is at diagnosing scans needing further investigation. These will be compared to the results already produced by the breast scanning team.