Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Advance Laboratory Medicine Leadership | Additional features

A robotic arm that takes a tube with a sample from the patient. It puts it in a self-contained GPS monitored smart car. He takes it first to a centrifuge. Then, for the rest of the custom tests. When it’s over, it goes to the waiting area. You may be asked for new tests. If this happens, it starts again. If not, then it goes to the storage sector. This process is carefully designed, and controlled by clinical analysis service professionals, who will ultimately report the results.

Crossing over information from databases, medical records, analyzes, medical evidence and applying AI models and models is designed to predict diseases. With these results, many people’s lives are improved and the lives of many others saved.

They are not paragraphs taken from the latest best-selling science fiction books to hit the market. There are two facts here and now. The closest they are in Valencia and Alicante. Specifically, in clinical analysis laboratories at La Fe and San Juan Hospitals, respectively.

It is ranked in the functional domains of Biochemistry and Immunochemistry. “They are the ones who process the most complex samples, and they deal with a very large number of them, and because of their large size, it is difficult to organize them,” explains the doctor. Hemostasis and blood diseases have their own chains.

“It has nothing to do with detecting diabetes or hypercalcemia early or years later, when some organs are already affected,” he highlights. The solution to both problems could be strict control and lifestyle changes in the first case or a simple operation to remove the analog gland in the second case. And it summarizes: “Through a very simple and cheap test, early detection is made, the patient is protected, and some diseases are well prevented.”

Advanced solutions

The 240,000 people living in San Juan de Alicante Hospital’s area of ​​influence are the primary beneficiaries of these clinical decision-making support solutions.

The laboratory of this center treats more than 1,000 patients every day. They mostly come from primary care, but they also hail from the emergency department, specialist physicians, or admissions patients. In this place everything comes together. Here the data, knowledge, advice, and references found in the medical records required for the past 15 years and the intentions of the professionals are mixed. Everything is interconnected. With artificial intelligence, it is possible to mix all of this and get a winning hand.

“With the consensus of primary care physicians and the hospital administration, we decided to conduct a series of tests and eliminate other unnecessary tests. Always with the aim of benefiting the patient in a particular case,” details the center’s chief clinical analysis.
In this way, models and prototypes are built to predict diseases. He says: “When a patient goes to the hospital in any way, the possibility of contracting a specific disease is determined precisely or very high.”

Dr. Salinas provides another example to illustrate the above: “With artificial intelligence and millions of data that we are dealing with simultaneously, and at such high speed, we benefit from creating models to see if we can detect thyroid diseases in older women aged 45 years. They are very frequent and sometimes It cannot be detected, without severe symptoms, but it nullifies it in the tasks of daily life

Smart solutions like this make it easy to interpret the enormity of patient data generated to support the clinician in making their decisions at all times and in real time.

Smart investment

Treatments, diagnostics, and prevention. Laboratory medicine leaves its mark while using technology in the entire process that a patient goes through. Bearing in mind that the stories of thousands of people in these two hospitals pass through his hands, it is the medical specialty that treats most patients in these centers on a daily basis.

Hence the importance of creating accurate models with a very high success rate with these techniques if the patient suffers from specific syndromes or diseases.

Without neglecting the other benefits that also come into play. A decrease in the percentage of errors, in variation in doctors’ decision and in increased health system efficiency. Because in an increasingly aging society, with more healthcare, economic pressure and limited resources, doctors can devote more time and energy to improving patients’ health. As Dr. Maria Salinas says, “Only with the value of the reagent strip can we discover pathology and improve that person’s life.”

She also presented her logical conclusion: “Investments in laboratory medicine using technology and artificial intelligence are currently investing in prevention.”

Forward opens up a world of infinite possibilities. Because you are only at the beginning of this path. To the examples already seen, many others have been added: recognition of vitamin B12 deficiency; Models are also being tested for myeloma, a disease whose prognosis improves dramatically if diagnosed early; In coagulation, in the prognosis of no urinary tract infection, in patients presenting to the emergency department or in detection of magnesium deficiency in those over the age of 65 years. “We cannot cope, there are many possibilities,” said the doctor, who is committed to exporting this model to laboratories in other centers.

And it all starts with a simple gesture. With the analysis that the patient must perform for any reason. From there, technology opens the door for the doctor to take a step forward. It gives you the option to anticipate what will happen. Then you can watch, see what happens, and take action. Future medicine is here.

Responsible for 70% of decisions

“The lab is the big unknown for hospitals,” says Begoña Laíz of La Fe Hospital. In fact, many believe that the work done in these places is limited to receiving samples, analyzing them, and giving results. Nothing is further from reality. In fact, the lab is “responsible for providing 70% of patient diagnoses and a large amount of results,” he recalls.

But the silent work of the laboratory begins much earlier. The moment the doctor sends a test to the patient. The gear is then adjusted, it doesn’t matter only the result. Extraction, transportation and preservation are also essential. Maria Salinas, of San Juan Hospital, explains that all of this “was done by hand before, whereas now everything is very automated and we are working with the latest technology.” Thanks to this, laboratory medicine professionals save time to investigate and improve patients’ health.