AI in Future Prehospital Care

AI influences many areas within science, technology and even our everyday lives. The 'AI in Prehospital Care' conference focussed on use of AI in healthcare and medical care, with a particular emphasis on prehospital healthcare in ambulances and similar applications. 

Knowledge and insight about the possibilities and challenges associated with automation were spread with numerous examples from the surrounding world and Swedish healthcare and personal assistance. 

Bengt Arne Sjöqvist and Hanna Maurin Söderholm from PICTA presented PreSISe, a collaborative project with several parties who will contribute to improve accuracy in pre-hospital assessment of suspected sepsis patients with the help of AI. Then a live demonstration of the mobile prehospital test bed was given.

'What does it mean to introduce AI in real healthcare? There are many challenges here, including algorithms in the form of a medical technology product that must comply with the same legal regulations as other medical technology products before they are approved for use,' says Bengt Arne Sjöqvist, head of the programme at PICTA. That entails clinical validation, among other things. In our project and today's demonstration, we want to show how simulations can be a means of understanding how AI can be evaluated before it is used in an operative environment.

The conference was arranged by PICTA and AI Competence for Sweden and was a gathering of doctors, nurses, ambulance personnel, computer scientists and students. 

'AI Competence for Sweden is a national initiative to improve society's competence within AI - both technically and socially. The seven universities involved in the initiative have different profiles, but our profile is unique because we have the unique collaboration between the University of Gothenburg, Chalmers University of Technology, PICTA and other centres like SAFER and Software Centre. The fact that we have so many interested participants at our seminars is proof that this type of profile is needed,' says Miroslaw Staron, Professor at the Institution for Computer and Information Technology at the University of Gothenburg.

Read more about the PreSISe project