Ping An Smart Healthcare (PASH), a subsidiary of the Ping An Group (Ping An) in China, has introduced AskBob, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based medical decision support tool, to Singapore through collaborations with SingHealth and the National University Health System (NUHS).

AskBob, developed by Ping An, provides critical and up-to-date medical information to clinicians when dealing with patients at the point of care and for medical research and self-learning such as case discussions.

WHY IT MATTERS

At the point of care scenario, AskBob provides precise diagnosis and treatment recommendations for more than 1,500 diseases. Unlike other clinical decision support systems (CDSS), AskBob is a “knowledge + data” two-wheeled drive intelligent CDSS based on millions of anonymous patient medical records, clinical guidelines and a core medical knowledge graph covering tens of millions of medical data. The treatment recommendations AskBob provides are authoritative, personalised and patient-centric.

For medical research and self-learning, AskBob makes use of Ping An’s leading medical knowledge graph and advanced natural language processing technologies (NLP) to perform more user-friendly, intuitive and precise online searches and literature analyses. AskBob can provide up-to-date literature analysis summaries and predict scientific research trends. It can also track the scholar team network in a certain research field to connect researchers around the world.

COLLABORATIONS WITH SINGHEALTH AND NUHS

The collaboration with SingHealth, one of Singapore’s largest public healthcare groups, started in April this year. It aims to provide doctors with personalised treatment recommendations for Type 2 diabetes patients at the point of care. Diabetes is a serious health issue in Singapore, with one in nine Singapore residents aged 18 to 69 having diabetes. AskBob’s recommendations can potentially help achieve better diabetes control and health outcomes, including reducing diabetic complications such as stroke and kidney failure.

NUHS, an academic health sciences centre in Singapore, is piloting AskBob with clinicians for smart literature search and medical research trend analysis.

ON THE RECORD

“We are delighted to cooperate with SingHealth and the National University Health System. They are both authoritative healthcare institutions in Singapore,” said Dr. Xie Guotong, Chief Healthcare Scientist of Ping An Group in a statement.

Dr. Bee Yong Mong, Head of the SingHealth Duke-NUS Diabetes Centre said: “An AI-based clinical decision support system could potentially help doctors increase the accuracy and efficiency of diabetes treatment. With the tool, we hope to better predict risks of complications and offer more personalised treatment recommendations to patients.”

Prof. Ngiam Kee Yuan, Group Chief Technology Officer from NUHS, said: “More than a search engine, AskBob uses a medical knowledge graph and a natural language processing engine to empower precise literature analysis without giving you information that you don’t need. This is the power of using AskBob. I believe it will be extremely helpful for clinicians in medical research and case discussions.”