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In order to avoid possible errors in the choice of drugs to inject into patients, researchers have designed a small intelligent camera intended to alert doctors in the event of incorrect handling.
A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the University of Washington in Seattle has developed the first-ever wearable camera that uses artificial intelligence to help prevent medication errors in hospitals. The aim of this device is to automatically detect medication misadministration in real time, before injection, in order to alert the clinician so that he has time to intervene before the patient is put in danger.
An intelligent device to avoid medication errors
According to these researchers, the error rate for all medications administered in a hospital varies from one establishment to another by 5 to 10%. To remedy this problem, which can sometimes lead to drama, they designed an intelligent portable camera system, operating on the basis of algorithms analyzing the labels of drugs selected by doctors. The first are specially dedicated to transferring a medication from a bottle into a syringe. This may concern a poor choice of bottle or even exchanges of syringes. The difficulty of observation is all the greater as these elements fit in the hand and their labels can easily be hidden during handling.
To develop their learning model, the researchers collected images using a small camera attached to doctors’ foreheads while they prepared their injections. In 55 days of taking images, they collected a multitude of video sequences from 13 anesthetists and 17 operating rooms spread across two hospitals. Then, out of a total of 418 drug collection events observed during routine patient care, the system achieved greater than 99% accuracy in its judgments. Now that they have demonstrated the accuracy of their system, the next step will be to integrate their camera into glasses that can instantly provide visual or auditory warnings to clinicians before they mistreat a patient.
Note that their research was the subject of a publication in npj Digital Medicine. Each year, in the United States, more than a million patients suffer from adverse effects, more or less serious, linked to medications injected into them.