Dubai medical fitness X-Ray screening to take one second

Reading the X-rays of residency applicants in Dubai will now take just one second instead of the earlier three minutes, said health officials.
The system, which uses artificial intelligence (AI), has been launched by the Ministry of Health and Prevention and will be available across all its centres soon.
Dr Hussein Abdul Rahman Al Rand, assistant undersecretary for the health centres and clinics sector, said that every year, 900,000 people are being screened at the centres for residency purposes. X-ray screening is a mandatory procedure that aims to protect the community from communicable diseases.
"So, where the doctor used to see one case in three minutes, with this technology, 180 cases will be seen within the same period," he said.
A doctor no longer has to spend 45,000 hours reading X-rays, as the system has reduced the workload by 93 per cent.
The technology is based on algorithms that employ AI in X-ray devices to identify communicable diseases through the X-ray films of a patient.
The diagnosis of each case takes about one second instead of the three minutes it usually takes with the traditional method of reading X-rays.
"The accuracy of this technology is about 98 per cent. Only two per cent of cases need to be reviewed by a specialist," Dr Al Rand said.
Dr Al Rand said that the new system is capable of diagnosing communicable diseases at high efficiency and low costs.
The initial phase of the new system has been launched at Al Baraha and Ibn Battuta medical centres. It will be implemented across the country in the next phase.
"The new system will reduce government costs that are allocated to healthcare facilities, medical employees, and diagnostic equipment," he said.
asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com