Google's AI doctor gets ready to go to work in India

 07-Jun-17, Wired 

Google is poised to begin a grand experiment in using machine learning to widen access to healthcare. If it is successful, it could see the company help protect millions of people with diabetes from an eye disease that leads to blindness.

Image: Cole Wilson / Wired

Last year researchers at the company announced that they had trained image recognition algorithms to detect signs of diabetes-related eye disease roughly as well as human experts. The software spots tiny aneurisms indicating diabetic retinopathy, which causes blindness if untreated.

Google said work has begun on integrating the technology into a chain of eye hospitals in India. The country is one of many where a lack of ophthalmologists means many diabetics don’t get annual screening for diabetic retinopathy. Google is working with the Aravind Eye Care System, a network of eye hospitals.

 Read the full article  

 Insights