{"id":103720,"date":"2019-11-13T16:59:53","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T16:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/?p=435206"},"modified":"2019-11-13T16:59:53","modified_gmt":"2019-11-13T16:59:53","slug":"forus-health-uses-ai-to-help-eradicate-preventable-blindness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/11\/13\/forus-health-uses-ai-to-help-eradicate-preventable-blindness\/","title":{"rendered":"Forus Health uses AI to help eradicate preventable blindness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Big problems, shared solutions<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Tackling global challenges has been the focus of many health data consortiums that Microsoft is enabling. The Microsoft Intelligent Network for Eyecare (MINE)<\/a> \u2013 the initiative that Chandrasekhar read about \u2013 is now part of the Microsoft AI Network for Healthcare, which also includes consortiums focused on cardiology<\/a> and pathology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For all three, Microsoft\u2019s aim is to play a supporting role to help doctors and researchers find ways to improve health care using AI and machine learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe health care providers are the experts,\u201d said Prashant Gupta, Program Director in Azure Global Engineering. \u201cWe are the enabler. We are empowering these health care consortiums to build new things that will help with the last mile.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Forus Health project, that \u201clast mile\u201d started by ensuring image quality. When members of the consortium began doing research on what was needed in the eyecare space, Forus Health was already taking the 3nethra classic to villages to scan hundreds of villagers in a day. But because the images were being captured by minimally trained technicians in areas open to sunlight, close to 20% of the images were not high quality enough to be used for diagnostic purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have bad images, the whole process is crude and wasteful,\u201d Gupta said. \u201cSo we realized that before we start to understand disease markers, we have to solve the image quality problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, an image quality algorithm immediately alerts the technician when an image needs to be retaken.<\/p>\n

The same thought process applies to the cardiology and pathology consortiums. The goal is to see what problems exist, then find ways to use technology to help solve them.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you have that larger shared goal, when you have partners coming together, it\u2019s not just about your own efficiency and goals; it\u2019s more about social impact,\u201d Gupta said.<\/p>\n

And the highest level of social impact comes through collaboration, both within the consortiums themselves and when working with organizations such as Forus Health who take that technology out into the world.<\/p>\n

Chandrasekhar said he is eager to see what comes next.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though it\u2019s early, the impact in the next five to 10 years can be phenomenal,\u201d he said. \u201cI appreciated that we were seen as an equal partner by Microsoft, not just a small company. It gave us a lot of satisfaction that we are respected for what we are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Top image: <\/em>Forus Health\u2019s 3nethra classic is an eye-scanning device that can be attached to the back of a moped and transported to remote locations. Photo by Microsoft. <\/em> <\/i><\/p>\n

Leah Culler edits Microsoft\u2019s AI for Business and Technology blog.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Big problems, shared solutions Tackling global challenges has been the focus of many health data consortiums that Microsoft is enabling. The Microsoft Intelligent Network for Eyecare (MINE) \u2013 the initiative that Chandrasekhar read about \u2013 is now part of the Microsoft AI Network for Healthcare, which also includes consortiums focused on cardiology and pathology. For […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[135,50],"class_list":["post-103720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-recent-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}