GLASGOW is to be home to one of five new artificial intelligence health research centres, which it is said will revolutionise patient diagnostics and care.
The £15.8 million project is part of UK Government plans to make more use of AI, with other centres to open in Leeds, Oxford, Coventry and London. The Industrial Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research in Digital Diagnostics, to be known as iCAIRD, brings together a Scotland-wide collaboration of 15 partners from across academia, the NHS, and industry.
Based at the University of Glasgow’s clinical innovation zone at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, it will involve teams from Aberdeen, St Andrews and Edinburgh to enable joined-up academic and commercial technology development.
UK Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary Greg Clark will announce a £10m investment in the Glasgow centre today.
Partner companies in the University of Glasgow-led Scotland consortium, Canon Medical Research Europe Ltd and Philips, along with six SMEs, will provide more than £5m of additional funding to support iCAIRD.
It will be a Scottish centre of excellence and will focus on the application of AI in digital diagnostics, ultimately enabling better and earlier diagnosis and more efficient treatment.
It is also predicted that iCAIRD will create new jobs centred around AI and digital technology in healthcare. The consortium says the centre’s work will deliver significant benefits for patients through the development of more rapid treatment for strokes; expert chest X-ray reading; rapid and more accurate diagnosis in
gynaecological disease and colon cancer; and partly automated mammogram analysis.
Using modern computers’ ability to process the large amounts of data gathered in NHS healthcare clinics, iCAIRD will also allow clinicians, health planners and industry to solve healthcare challenges more quickly and efficiently.
Professor David Harrison, who is based in St Andrews but has visiting professorships in Glasgow and Edinburgh, is the principal investigator for the project.
He said: “This is a genuine collaboration between researchers from Scottish universities, the NHS, and industry partners who are also contributing large sums to enable this project to be a success. Our aim is to transform digital diagnostic healthcare in Scotland, to benefit patients and make processes more streamlined and modern.”
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said: “Innovation and technology is an absolutely essential part of our efforts to get quicker and more accurate diagnosis, improved treatment and better outcomes for patients.
“This successful bid is the culmination of a huge amount of hard work from many in the NHS, including NHS Grampian and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office.
“It will complement some of the other ongoing work in Scotland in the field of health technology and life sciences.”
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