- The system has been installed at Kimbimbi Level 4 Hospital’s radiography department and integrated into the hospital’s X-ray equipment.
- It will reduce the burden of detection of health conditions on healthcare professionals.
Image: FILE
The Kirinyaga government has installed the first Artificial Intelligence system to enhance disease diagnostic services.
The system has been installed at Kimbimbi Level 4 Hospital’s radiography department and integrated into the hospital’s X-ray equipment. It will reduce the burden of detection of health conditions on healthcare professionals.
The AI system consists of two key components, with one focusing on enhancing chest findings thus enabling the detection of conditions such as tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cancer, and the other designed to identify musculoskeletal defects and fractures.
While supervising the installation of the system, the Director of Health and Medical Services Dr Hesbon Gakuo emphasised the transformative potential of the technology.
“The AI programme will assist radiographers to detect TB more accurately and curb human error misdiagnosis. It will act as an assistive device, detecting abnormalities in the lungs. It also encompasses integration into the digital X-ray machines as well as training of staff on use of the software,” Dr Gakuo said.
The AI technology has been implemented at Kimbimbi hospital since most of the TB cases in the county come from Mwea, which constituted to 40 per cent in the county last year.
Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru said that the system would revolutionise healthcare service delivery in the county, underscoring her administration’s commitment to leverage cutting-edge technology in order to improve diagnostic accuracy, enhance patient care and ultimately save lives.
She said the county has made tremendous progress in enhancing health services through adoption of modern technology.
“AI has emerged as a valuable tool and is being used for disease detection and diagnosis, medical imaging and analysis, among others. In our healthcare, we are also adopting all valuable advances in digital healthcare technologies. Digitided healthcare presents numerous opportunities for reducing human errors,” she said.
The AI project that is being implemented in partnership with the National TB Programme, AMREF Health Africa among other partners, will also be implemented at Kerugoya Level 5 Hospital and thereafter to other health facilities in the county.
An ICT officer at the National TB Programme, Timothy Kandie, said that the AI technology would ease the load on clinicians in diagnosing health abnormalities in patients so as to initiate timely treatment.
Kenya has not been left behind as the globe moves to use of AI, which plays a key role in health services.
“With the high number of patients coming in, and with the few number of radiologists in the country, this programme will be able to ease the traffic as radiologists will be able to read patients' images remotely and treat them accordingly,” Kandie said.
He explained that AI technology is an end-to-end platform for TB screening, programme and case management, capable of generating TB interface reports in less than 15 seconds.
It has demonstrated remarkable efficiency, boasting a 50 per cent cost saving on confirmatory tests, 11 per cent increase in additional TB cases detected and 90 per cent reduction in X-ray reporting time.
The WHO-validated software is currently deployed in over 2,100 sites across 90 countries.