ChatGPT, the latest artificial intelligence (AI) trend, has continued to create surprises in our daily lives. The trend has naturally spread to the field of medicine which generates a wave of new smart healthcare applications that combine biomedicine with AI. The development has driven massive growth in biomedical technology which drastically reduces the analysis and interpretation time, thereby increasing the accuracy and efficiency of diagnosis. The AI-oriented medicine is creating new opportunities as smart technology has become an indispensable force that drives the development of biomedical science.
Using Software as a Service (SaaS) as the core, and supported by AI technologies such as natural language processing, computer vision, deep learning, and big data analytics, ASUS Intelligent Cloud Services (AICS) utilizes valuable medical data to accelerate the development of intelligent applications and improve the operational performance of hospitals. Upon receiving an invitation from Danyu Bai, Deputy Director of Trade and Investment of the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei (CTOT), AICS and the Center of Intelligent Healthcare of the National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) jointly participated in a smart medicine reverse pitch forum as heavy hitters in the healthcare industry, to help healthcare startups better understand the pain points in the clinical field. Additionally, the event allowed hospitals to find better solutions to address their problems and achieve win-win situations.
Dr. Chien-Chang Lee, Deputy Director of the Center of Intelligent Healthcare at NTUH, pointed out that AI technology is a critical foundation for hospitals in embarking on the next phase of smart healthcare and precision health technology. The application of AI technologies in providing a series of precise medical predictions, guidance, and treatment is bringing about significant changes in the doctor-patient relationship and the clinical healthcare environment. Furthermore, a greater revolution has emerged through AI deep learning or machine learning.
Federated Learning Technology Achieves Balance Between "Innovative Technology," "Privacy Protection"
AI algorithms rely on training using large volumes of medical data and samples to become increasingly reliable. Thus, medical images and data accumulated by NTUH over an extended period have become the key to resolving the development of smart healthcare. However, medical data is a key asset protected by government regulations, as it involves critical issues of patient privacy protection.
From the perspective of achieving a balance between "innovative technology" and "privacy protections," NTUH is optimistic about the ability of federated learning technology in catering to the ardent need. By applying complex encryption technology on medical data, cloud services are provided such that AI algorithms and learning frameworks are put onto the cloud. Consequently, encrypted data from other hospitals can be used for training different AI models via federated learning technology.
Not only can patient data be protected from leaks, training can also be provided to train AI models to solve medical diagnosis and precise prediction issues. All of this requires finding a partner among suppliers of information technology and cloud services that can build a smart healthcare system to satisfy legality requirements, while catering to privacy and data protection.
AICS xHIS Cloud Platform as Role Model in Medical Resource Sharing, Compliance
Michael Wu, Director of Business Development at ASUS Intelligent Cloud Services (AICS) said that in the past, Asus actively participated in large-scale supercomputer projects executed by the government and research institutions, so as to accumulate comprehensive technological experience. Since being founded in 2019, AICS has been dedicated to developing AI software and targeting businesses related to healthcare institutions. Currently, an engineering team totaling 150 members has been established in both Taiwan and Singapore. They have since developed over 20 AI-based smart software products, serving over 30,000 customers, and the service volume have reached 1.2 million times per month.
Based on major smart healthcare development trends observed during AICS's participation in building hospital systems, Wu believes that the greatest challenge and bottleneck faced by hospitals are the dispersion of large volumes of data across different locations and data silos issues due to heterogeneous formats. Therefore, to solve the issues, AICS focus on providing and establishing smart healthcare information and hybrid cloud platforms. By revolutionizing cloud architecture, AICS works to change the rules of the game.
To address data silos issues, ASUS xHIS platform, a healthcare cloud platform, is used for developing information systems for hospitals. Standardized data formats that conform to international norms are established, allowing doctors and professionals to design different types of AI software on the platform that can create and share standardized processes for medical images and data. As a result, collaborations on medical image data with international startups that offer innovative technologies can be formed on the platform. Such innovative technologies can provide timely and legally compliant solutions to improve hospital procedures, thereby completing the construction of a smart healthcare ecosystem.
Many AI suppliers from North America or Europe are attracted to Taiwan's smart healthcare ecosystem because of the high-quality medical image data, such as those provided by NTUH. This gives Western tech companies an opportunity to test AI data from the Asia Pacific region. Furthermore, the affordable costs of medical data allow Western companies to drastically reduce their development costs of smart solutions. Meanwhile, Taiwan has accumulated a large amount of data due to its robust health insurance system, thus providing an advantage for the development of global AI solutions. The large data is important in testing or training complex AI models using examples that satisfy legal compliance requirements and have economic value. The joint effort in building a smart healthcare ecosystem by the Center of Intelligent Healthcare at NTUH, and AICS will position Taiwan to make key contributions to the global smart healthcare industry.