While augmented intelligence (AI), often called artificial intelligence, holds great promise to streamline health care if done right, there are no shortcuts to its implementation, according to a physician who has been working in the field of health care AI for 30 years.
The LumineticsCore™ (formerly known as IDx-DR) diabetic retinopathy diagnostic exam solution created by physician-scientist and AMA member Michael Abramoff, MD, PhD, is the first autonomous AI system authorized by the Food and Drug Administration. It is autonomous in that a computer makes the diagnosis, not a human.
It was an eight-year journey to FDA approval for Dr. Abramoff, an ophthalmologist specializing in retinal disease who was disturbed by how long it often took for patients with diabetes to see an eye-care specialist for a diabetic retinopathy exam. He was also bothered by how specialists’ schedules are frequently crammed full of routine eye-exam visits that did not require their level of expertise.