Demand for digital transformations has risen sharply in the post-pandemic era. At the "smart healthcare" sub forum during "AUO Tech Forum 2020," the company and its partners displayed innovative integration of AIoT and display technologies to assist healthcare industries in finding key opportunities for smart upgrades.
Displays are key devices in smart hospitals, with 4K and 3D soon to become main stream
Chang Tsz-yin, leader of the ITRI Biomedical Technology and Device Research Lab was the first to take the stage with an analysis of the current conditions and future outlook of smart healthcare. She pointed out that any ICT technology solutions relating to medical decision-making, enhancing doctor-patient relations, improving operational efficiency, simplifying administrative processes, or optimizing service processes could be selected as long as they solve the problems and pain points in the field of medicine.
Chang Tsz-yin mentioned that as we enter the era of healthcare 4.0, there is an emphasis of big data, IoT , AI integrated decision-making and interpretation, as well as connecting different clinical operations and information systems. Medical displays are an indispensable technology in smart hospitals as they assist physicians with visualizing the conditions within a patient's body for clinicopathological diagnosis and displaying treatment progress; 4K and 3D displays are expected to become mainstream in medical imaging applications due to their enhanced clarity.
MedicalTek CEO Jack Liu stated that while there are numerous methods of treatment, physicians still rely on surgical treatments at critical junctures; utilizing technology to build safe, high quality surgical models is extremely important.
Technological advancements have replaced traditional open surgery with minimally invasive surgeries. Operating theatres have become areas with high display density as physicians utilize endoscopes and displays to view patient lesions, thereby making requirements for picture quality even higher. Display resolutions have gone from SD, 2K all the way to improved full color gamut, improved resolution of reds, and better emphasis of ICG fluorescence in 4K and 8K displays to help doctors identify lesions with enhanced clarity.
Eddie Huang, the NVIDIA Solution Architect Director of Healthcare mentioned that models are the soul of AI. When problem solving within industries, single modules are rarely utilized; instead, multiple modules are often linked as jobs, then multiple jobs are linked to form pipelines. Due to this complicated architecture, NVIDIA developed a data center platform architecture to assist users with the acceleration of end-to-end processes; additionally, the NVIDIA Clara framework was developed for healthcare applications. It includes a wealth of reference applications and SDK so that physicians can develop AI autonomously without having to rely on IT.
Reliance on professional medical displays to effectively solve pain points within the field
AUO General Display Business Division Director Jerry Chen elaborated on the new opportunities of medical displays and sensing in the post-pandemic era. This pandemic has driven the medical field to accelerate towards digital transformations based on the theme of "ABCD" (AI, big data, cloud, and displays). AUO has accumulated strong capabilities in research and technology after years of investment in the field of medical applications. Today, the company holds more than 20% of the global market share in both professional medical displays and X-ray sensors.
Jerry Chen stated that "physicians have very high expectations for displays in areas such as high definition imaging and color fidelity due to their prolonged periods of daily use". AUO designs human-centric professional medical displays to solve the pain points within the field.
By utilizing 4K Deep-Red surgical displays, the company has successfully overcome the restrictions of color gamut with enhanced performance at high saturation to display multiple levels of red so that surgeons can clearly identify the differences between tissues and lesions. Diagnostic displays with high contrast ratio and wide viewing angles utilize enhanced contrast to emphasize light and dark levels so that radiologists can view fine tissue with clarity.
AUO offers the world's first "super narrow bezel and true portrait" design, creating a superior visual experience to give radiologists improved image reading quality during diagnosis. A.R.T (Advanced Reflectionless Technology) displays effectively improves the visual comfort of physicians during prolonged viewings by reducing glare and reflections.
The event's finale concluded with talks by Yu-li Tsai, Director of the Embedded Platform and Module Department of ADLINK Technology and Ken Yu, Chairman and CEO of imedtac. Yu-li Tsai pointed out that edge computing in medical imaging is the quickest application to land in the field of smart healthcare; While ADLINK Technology first started in designing controllers, the company formed alliances with industry leaders and behemoths such as AUO, Intel, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm. The company developed various AIOM smart modules based on industry standards and combined them with AI-enabled machine vision systems to provide a comprehensive application-ready edge computing platform in the field of healthcare; edge video analysis (EVA) is provided to assist with simple data collection, advanced processing, model training, to complicated processes such as system deployment in healthcare.
Ken Yu stated that medical institutions place an emphasis on satisfying the demands of OT (operational technology), yet rarely pay attention to the evolution of IT technologies. The reason that AI, IoT, and robotics can thrive in healthcare is due to their OT value in requiring "less focus", "less attention", and "less effort". Based on this context, imedtac invested in a series of AIoT based smart medical solutions for smart guided treatment, high-quality nursing, smart operating theatres, medical logistics, and green hospitals in the hopes of accessing foreign markets by exporting modules or planning entire hospitals.
Hence, the company has held a long-term partnership with AUO as imedtac's product deployment encompasses turnkey solutions for software/hardware integration, touch displays, and the management platform's automated dispensing cabinet (ADC), all of which heavily rely on professional medical displays.
Medical IoT is the cornerstone of future hospitals and is critical for conducting broad sensing and data acquisition in key areas such of outpatient clinics, wards, operating theatres, storage, disinfection, and supply rooms. By combining technologies such as AI analytics and displays, the quality and safety of healthcare can be enhanced by assisting physicians and administrators in monitoring medical processes.
AUO General Display Business Division Director, Chen Yu-cun, provided a keynote on AUO Tech Forum 2020
ADLINK has launched an efficient and safe intelligent diagnosis solution
AUO's professional medical care display technologies are able to assist medical staff in making accurate diagnosis
DIGITIMES' editorial team was not involved in the creation or production of this content. Companies looking to contribute commercial news or press releases are welcome to contact us.