3 publicaciones etiquetados con "Automatic severity assessment"

Introduction​

In the healthcare sector, a silent but pervasive challenge impacts the well-being of those at the frontline of patient care. This challenge is doctor burnout, a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress in the medical profession. The repercussions of doctor burnout extend beyond the healthcare providers; they also affect the quality of care received by patients.

At Legit.Health, we recognize the critical importance of supporting healthcare professionals. Our dedication to enhancing the lives of doctors and patients is reflected in our advanced artificial intelligence technology. Designed to streamline clinical workflows, our AI tools aim to alleviate the daily pressures faced by physicians, promoting a more sustainable work environment and better patient outcomes.

Doctor burnout, a serious problem​

Doctor burnout represents a significant and complex issue within the medical community. The World Health Organization defines burnout as an occupational phenomenon characterized by chronic work-related distress. It includes emotional exhaustion and irritability, a gradual loss of empathy and an increase in negative feelings such as cynicism, and a sense that your own professional effectiveness is rapidly decreasing.

This pervasive issue transcends borders, cultures, and languages, suggesting that its roots are deeply embedded in the fundamental nature of medical practice. It's not only a matter of individual well-being but also of the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare systems globally.

While completely eradicating doctor burnout may not be immediately feasible, it is imperative for the medical community and society at large to address the cultural, social, and economic factors contributing to this crisis. As a part of this community, it is our responsibility to critically evaluate and actively work towards mitigating the causes of this widespread concern—a concern that directly impacts the backbone of our healthcare systems and, consequently, our overall societal health.

A bad situation, made worse by COVID-19​

The challenge of doctor burnout, already significant prior to COVID-19, has been dramatically intensified by the pandemic. This global health crisis has pushed the medical community to unprecedented limits, further amplifying issues that were already present.

Doctors have long faced intense work hours, emotional and physical fatigue, and a sense of powerlessness within a system that can often feel unwieldy and unsupportive. The pandemic has undone many of the strides made in recent years to manage doctor workloads and improve overall well-being. A startling statistic reveals the depth of this crisis: three in five doctors report feeling depleted at the end of a workday, and 44% describe their work as emotionally draining.

Subjecting healthcare professionals to such relentless stress not only endangers their health but also poses severe risks to patient care and safety. While tackling the systemic roots of this issue remains a long-term goal, immediate and effective strategies are essential to alleviate the burden on doctors and mitigate the consequences of burnout.

6 Ways Legit.Health reduces doctor burnout​

At Legit.Health, we provide a groundbreaking Clinical Data and Communication Tool tailored for modern dermatologists. This tool is designed not just to simplify clinical tasks but to empower patients in their care journey. Below are six key ways our platform reduces the stress and workload contributing to doctor burnout.

Legit.Health is the revolutionary Clinical Data and Communication tool for Next-generation dermatologists that triples the empowerment of patients.

The purpose of deep learning algorithms used in Legit.Health is to help doctors make an informed decision, putting all the processing power and stored data of a cutting-edge computation at the service of the physician's performance.

Legit.Health's algorithms automatically grade lesions just by looking at smartphone images and small patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). In other words: the tool will automatically fill in most of the dermatology scoring systems, such as PASI, SCORAD, UAS, as well as estimate the pre-malignancy of any lesion.

How does this revolutionary tool for next-generation doctors work?

1. Minimize the time spent on menial tasks​

One of the main causes of doctor burnout is not having enough quality time with the patients. After all, the doctor has dedicated years of training to be able to help people, and spending time performing tasks that seem unimportant is quite frustrating.

This is especially true in dermatology, where they often need to linger counting lessions or calculating affected area and severity scores instead of actually interacting with the patient. Sadly, to this day, the best the market could offer to doctors looking to make these tasks easier and faster were digital calculators that still require a high degree of attention.

Thanks to Legit.Health, that has changed, as the new algorithmic artificial intelligence tool can diagnose a pathology and determine its severity in less than 23 seconds, reducing the burnout in doctors who want to focus on the person in front of them.

Our deep learning algorithms offer enhanced decision support for dermatologists. By leveraging advanced computational power and a vast repository of data, Legit.Health assists doctors in making more informed, efficient diagnoses and treatment plans.

2. Reduce time spent generating a paper trail​

Many doctors feel that to keep up in their field and carry on with a successful career, they need to be published in top journals. This frustration forces them to carry out the complex clinical trials that push the borders of scientific progress beyond what could be imagined a decade ago.

However, the lack of time in the hands of these physicians supposes a problem yet another time, as the requirements to carry on this kind of study often imply a heavy paper trail that must be kept up to date with precise data. This supposes more time spent filling in forms and registering information manually, leading to more doctor burnout.

Legit.Health helps set up both traditional and decentralized clinical trials thanks to its many algorithmic functions such as our pixel-to-CSV converters, automatic patient-reported outcome measures, match inclusion algorithms and dermatology image quality algorithms.

All this technology is put in the hands of the doctor to make the data collecting process not only fast but also more accurate and objective, as the algorithm doesn't hold any of the bias a human might.

One of the standout features is the ability to automatically grade lesions using only smartphone images and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). This means Legit.Health's tool can autonomously complete most dermatology scoring systems including PASI, SCORAD, and UAS, and also assess the pre-malignancy of lesions.

3. Makes communication with the patient easier​

Another of the causes of doctor burnout is the perception of a loss of connection with the patient and their needs, as many physicians feel like they are forced to focus on data and statistics and not on the human side of the trade.

It is a well-known fact that the communication between doctor and patient is one of the cornerstones of modern medicine, and the efforts to make that communication more fluid and effective should not fall on the physician's shoulders alone.

That's why one of the biggest focuses of Legit.Health is streamlining the communication by making the process as smooth as possible, connecting patient and doctor through an app that allows for messages, pictures, and requests not only to be filled in remotely but also filtered by priority. All this makes the communication happening at the appropriate pace for the physician.

4. Makes the pressure of over-specialization less impactful​

The medical profession demands an extraordinarily high level of specialization, with many cases requiring in-depth knowledge not just in a general field, but in very specific conditions. This need for specialization can be particularly burdensome for primary care physicians who often encounter a broad spectrum of diseases, yet may lack the specialized knowledge for accurate diagnosis and treatment.

Legit.Health effectively bridges this gap by providing doctors with access to the consolidated expertise of leading specialists in various diseases. This is coupled with the robust processing capabilities of our deep learning algorithms, offering a swift and reliable source for second opinions.

This feature proves invaluable for primary care doctors, who can utilize Legit.Health to gain quick, objective insights akin to consulting with a specialist, without the time-consuming process of referring to extensive manuals. Dermatologists also benefit when they encounter conditions outside their specific area of expertise, enabling them to use our tool as a trustworthy resource for confirming diagnoses.

Ultimately, by equipping physicians with this level of support and knowledge, Legit.Health significantly alleviates the overwhelming pressure to be an expert in all areas, thus contributing to the reduction of doctor burnout.

5. Comply with applicable regulations, including GDPR​

One of the biggest causes of doctor burnout is having to deal with nonmedical matters such as regulations, as many feel they didn't devote their life to the practice of medicine to then expend their limited time and energy on such comparatively menial matters.

Of course, despite not being a very appealing job, taking care of regulations, normative and patient data are crucial for the proper workflow of a medical centre, and it's a task that someone should take care of.

That's why at Legit.Health we have put a strong focus on making it easier to comply with all those regulations, being the GDPR the best example of how we approach data protection and how we take this work off the shoulders of doctors, so they can focus on what's important.

6. Reducing the number of patient complaints​

Lastly, we have to consider the pressure patient complaints put on the back of the doctors. They are of course a valuable tool to avoid bad practices and gather feedback, but often the fear, lack of knowledge or a misunderstanding can be the cause of a complaint that could be avoided.

The strain this puts on physicians contributes to the burnout effect greatly, and the solution to it is clear: to reduce the number of complaints, not by making it harder for the patients to speak their voice, but by reducing the instances where those complaints must not rise.

A better informed and more satisfied patient is less likely to misunderstand or misrepresent a situation, thus improving the patient's experience, we reduce the stress on the doctor.

Legit.Health strives to improve the communication between patient and doctor, making the patient feel understood and in control. Better informed patients make better decisions, take their treatment more seriously, and trust their doctor more.

In conclusion​

When we set ourselves to the task of creating the perfect tool to have an impact on our users' quality of life, we did it with both patients and doctors in mind.

We have taken into account the experiences of doctors and the extensive literature produced about this topic in the last years to develop our software so it makes the life of the doctors who use it easier and less stressful.

The main objective is, and will always be, to improve the performance of the doctor and to increase the patient's quality of life.

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This free 23-day trial of Legit.Health gives clinics and hospitals a hands-on look at how to drive increased adherence and improve patient outcomes, as well as improving efficiency and overall quality of life.

Read the paper​

We invite you to read the full paper for yourself, or you can scroll down to read the summary in this educational blog post.

Introduction​

We introduce AUAS, an automatic equivalent of UAS that deploys a deep learning lesion-detecting algorithm, called Legit.Health-UAS-HiveNet. Our results show that our algorithm assesses the severity of Chronic Urticaria cases with a performance comparable to that of expert physicians.

Furthermore, the algorithm can be implemented into CADx systems to support doctors in their clinical practice and act as a new endpoint in clinical trials.

The real impact of the Legit.Health-UAS-HiveNet in clinical practice resides on the power to support physicians during not only the diagnostic process but also in the monitoring of patients with chronic types of urticaria, by helping them prescribe treatments and increase the adequacy of treatments.

Regarding clinical trials, the AUAS has the potential of becoming a new clinical endpoint that could increase both the quality and the quantity of data available to researchers.

Authors of the publication​

What is urticaria severity scoring?​

Urticaria is a very common disease characterized by erythematous, edematous, itchy, and transient plaques that involve the skin and mucous membranes. It can be classified into subtypes such as acute spontaneous urticaria, chronic spontaneous urticaria, chronic inducible urticaria, and episodic chronic urticaria.

Diagnosis of chronic urticaria is usually performed through clinical observation. In other words: the assessment of the disease's severity is performed through manual scoring systems that are filled in subjectively.

The most commonly used scoring system is the Urticaria Activity Score (UAS), which can also be used for 7 consecutive days, in which case it is referred to as UAS7.

The problem with visual scoring​

The most indisputable limitation of manual scoring systems is the inherent difficulty of human beings to quantify parameters in an objective, stable and precise way.

Humans have a limited ability to count hives, quantify the surface area of a lesion or quantify the redness of an area. This human limitation in parameter estimation is also reflected in the effort and time required to complete the urticaria activity questionnaires, which end up being a very unrewarding task for patients and may result in poor adherence.

On the other hand, scoring systems classify disease severity using a limited range of scores, with three or four categories, such as: none, mild, moderate and severe in the case of the UAS. Indeed, questionnaires have a very high minimum detectable change, as they are discrete ranges rather than continuous scales.

And finally, these questionnaires are susceptible to bias. This is especially true in cases where the patient knows that the treatment they receive will be determined by the information they provide. And due to the asynchronous nature of the reported measure, the clinical team lacks the means to ensure that the values reported by the patient are chronologically accurate or simply truthful, which precludes external verification.

The goal of the Automatic UAS​

In this work, we propose the Automatic Urticaria Activity Score (AUAS), an automatic version of the objective part of the UAS that applies convolutional neural networks to count hives automatically with high precision.

The goal is to assist clinicians in filling scoring systems such as the UAS in a more objective way and quicker, which could improve health outcomes and provide high-quality endpoints to measure the effectiveness of the treatments for urticaria.

The solution​

We trained trained a hive-counting neural network called Legit.Health-UAS-HiveNet.

To make artificial intelligence accessible to the healthcare professional, we developed a fully integrated CADx system, a web application that integrates Legit.Health-UAS-HiveNet algorithm and calculates the patient-based UAS by looking at images taken with smartphone cameras.

The CADx system works in three stages: image and itchiness input, processing of the images, and the creation of a report with the severity assessment.

The report can also combine the scores of multiple images uploaded in the same day to provide the global AUAS score.

In other words: if the user uploads pictures of several body parts, the report of the CADx system shows both the local and the global AUAS scores. The global AUAS is calculated by summing the results of all the images processed by the CADx system.

Conclusion​

In this work, we have presented the AUAS, the first artificial intelligence that automatically fills in the UAS scoring system by looking at smartphone images. The main advances in this algorithm are reducing the time spent by patients in filling in the manual severity scoring system and standardizing urticaria assessment with reduced inter-observer variability and higher reliability.

We were able to overcome clinical assessment variability by developing a merging algorithm that fuses all experts' annotations to create a consensus.

The AUAS as a scoring system presents improved clinimetric properties, but it also carries the advantage of providing a picture of the lesion along with the severity score, which allows researchers greater oversight of studies. In conclusion, we believe that the AUAS and Legit.Health-UAS-HiveNet has the potential to improve health outcomes, reduce costs, and increase the practice of evidence-based medicine in health organizations.

Get access now​

This free 23-day trial of Legit.Health gives clinics and hospitals a hands-on look at how to drive increased adherence and improve patient outcomes, as well as improving efficiency and overall quality of life.

Introduction​

In recent years, society as a whole has started to get used to the inevitability of a fully digital world embedding itself in all aspects of life, including healthcare.

And although there are many benefits the applied practice of telemedicine brings, there are also challenges to overcome before we can start to reap the benefits of this novel way of understanding healthcare.

Dermatologists highlight the usefulness of images in remote monitoring of chronic pathologies. That is why the tool is still in use today in our care activity, and we continue to explore new uses and improvements to it in the future.

Telemedicine is a reality, not a prediction​

Digital disconnection is no longer a possibility for the average person. To this day and age, where every home has an internet connection and every pocket is laced with a smartphone, trying to deny the power the global net holds over our daily lives is as ridiculous as impractical.

Of course, the healthcare world is no different in that regard. Those who try to resist this wave of modernization are quickly being left behind or are being forced to adapt. It is common for concepts like telemedicine to be treated in future tense, but the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that the time of predictions is over.

It is time to face the challenges that this new form of healthcare brings to us.

The past of remote care​

One of the first practical usages of telemedicine happened in the late 1950s, in the state of Nebraska, where a state hospital and a psychiatric institution implemented a closed-circuit television link in order to help to monitor the conditions of patients remotely.

Although technology did rapidly advance in the following decades, its application to the remote care of patients never got through to be majorly used. Thus far, the most notorious advancement consists in a telephonic consultation, despite being widely considered an insufficient measure by both physicians and patients.

Today, the urge of using telemedicine is rather a reality than a remote possibility. The pandemic of 2020 rapidly changed the perception and necessities of many, forcing the healthcare community to prioritize efficiency and implement all the tools at their disposal.

What does the future look like?​

Even though it is foolish to try to predict what future technologies will be developed in the next decade, we can learn from the most recent advancements to make an educated guess on the scientifical progress that will shape the future of healthcare.

An example can be the expansion of portable wirelessly accessible sensors, built into smartphones, smartwatches and other wearable devices, that allow doctors to collect data about their patients in real life and with minimal interference on their day-to-day life.

Another very promising prospect is Artificial Intelligence. Projects based on this technology have shown great results in the last couple of years in areas as diverse as oncology, radiotherapy, neurology, and dermatology.

One shining example of the use of Artificial Intelligence is Legit.Health, the revolutionary Clinical Data and Communication tool for Next-generation dermatologists that applies clinically validated algorithms and computer vision technology to enhance their medical practice.

The purpose of the deep learning algorithms is to relieve doctors from the tedious manual calculation of scoring systems and to allow the practice of a more objective evidence-based dermatology while speeding up the pathology reporting process and increasing patients' autonomy and control.

The 5 challenges of modern telemedicine​

Financing​

As commonly happens when suggesting to introduce a new technology or infrastructure, detractors rise money as an issue. However, considering only the potential costs of overhauling the medical system to make it more telematic is rather reductive unless the potential savings and profits are taken into account.

Balancing the economic costs and benefits of telemedicine will be without any doubt one of the biggest challenges to overcome, and the companies that offer services in this field need to keep that in mind. That's why Legit.Health keeps its pricing flexible and its technological requirements simple, so that any medical centre or institution can afford the small investment required.

Regulations​

Another big challenge to overcome before adopting a fully telemetric system has to do with laws and regulations. It varies from country to country, but anywhere you go in the world, the implementation of medical devices is heavily regulated.

Additionally, if those devices manage patient information, laws like GDPR come into place to guarantee the security and integrity of the data. That's why any attempt of leaning into telemedicine requires addressing these issues.

Legit.Health not only has the European CE marking, but is a tool that is fully compliant with the GDPR as well as all other European standards, taking some of the burden and the hard work associated with keeping these matters in check. In other words, your work will be mostly done for you when the time for an audit comes.

Adoption​

All the fancy technology in the world is equally useful or wasteful if those who are meant to use it do not know how to or do not want to adopt it. In this case, the challenge is twofold, as doctors and patients must come to terms with the idea of including these new technologies in the dynamics that have been ingrained in our collective mind for centuries.

Not only we need to convince patients that they can effectively communicate with their doctors via computers and smartphones, but we also need to help doctors adapt their usual routines to this novel systems.

This is why, Legit.Health has been developed with ease of use in mind. After being taken by the patient, the picture is analysed by the clinically validated algorithm and its results are sent to the doctor, who benefits from the consistency of the data generated by this process and greatly facilitates the work of monitoring rashes and disease development.

Technology​

Technology has been the focus of telemedicine for a long time. However, telemedicine is really about the services and not about the uniqueness of the latest technology. An approach based on services and positive health outcomes means that no matter how much technology changes, the medical centre will have a system in place to implement it.

Legit.Health enables medical centres to merge technology and service into one easy-to-use package, offering both a plethora of tools for the medical practice and multiple options to provide their patients with the services they need to feel cared for.

Evidence​

In the medical world, good ideas amount to nothing if they aren't backed by solid clinical evidence. This is true for procedures, drugs, medical devices and, of course, general concepts or services such as telemedicine.

Gathering scientific evidence might be the most difficult challenge telemedicine has to overcome before it can succeed. Every system, application, medical device or technology put in place to make this change possible must be thoroughly tested before it's implemented into a real-life setting.

Legit.Health participates in a myriad of clinical trials that pit algorithmic technology and application design against real medical scenarios in several European medical centres. As a company, we highly value our presence on medical journals, and helping to advance the field of dermatology is one of our main purposes.

In conclusion​

Although the road ahead is long and tortuous, the healthcare community as a whole has already begun to take the first steps towards a future where telemedicine is a reality.

Thanks to technological advances by companies such as Legit.Health and initiatives by medical service providers such as DKV, to name a few, both patients and doctors are becoming more accustomed to the reality of remote medicine.

Get access now​

This free 23-day trial of Legit.Health gives clinics and hospitals a hands-on look at how to drive increased adherence and improve patient outcomes, as well as improving efficiency and overall quality of life.