AI for Vision Health: Google’s new initiative aims to Prevent blindness in Diabetic patients
Google has introduced a new AI tool designed to identify early signs of diabetic retinopathy, collaborating with major health-tech partners in India.
Google’s AI model aids in identifying and diagnosing the early indicators of diabetic retinopathy, enabling healthcare professionals to provide timely treatment.
It has already been implemented in clinics around the globe and has been utilized in more than 600,000 screenings, with extensive initial research and testing conducted in India.
Google is advancing its initiatives in healthcare by providing licenses for its AI model, which is intended to identify diabetic retinopathy, to prominent health technology partners in India and Thailand.
Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the primary contributor to eye disorders and vision impairment among individuals with diabetes. Timely diagnosis in the early stages can help prevent complications related to vision loss or blindness. An early diagnosis and subsequent evaluation could lead to a 50% decrease in the likelihood of experiencing vision loss.
Google is enhancing its healthcare efforts by granting licenses for its AI model designed for diabetic retinopathy detection to prominent health-tech partners in India and Thailand.
These collaborations, which include Forus Health and AuroLab in India, as well as Perceptra in Thailand, are set to facilitate around six million AI-driven screenings over the next ten years.
These screenings will be provided free of charge to patients in underserved areas, with an emphasis on preventing preventable blindness through early detection and prompt medical care.
The initiative is founded on almost ten years of cooperation between Google Research and various hospitals, including Aravind Eye Hospital in India and Rajavithi Hospital in Thailand.
This collaboration commenced with the goal of investigating how artificial intelligence could address preventable blindness resulting from conditions such as diabetic retinopathy.
“We’ve also been working with the Thai Ministry of Public Health’s Department of Medical Services (DMS), which is responsible for the country’s diabetic retinopathy screening program, on implementation research and cost-effectiveness analysis. This collaboration is bringing our AI into Thailand’s National Innovation program and will pave the way for a partnership between Perceptra and DMS to apply the diabetic retinopathy AI model in public sector hospitals and help deliver impact at the population scale,” says a blog post by Google.