AI and Innovation Transform Clinical Practice in Spanish Hospitals, Despite Ongoing Challenges

Deep learning models to advance biomedical research, quantum computing applied to the search for biomarkers, therapeutic targets, and molecules that can provide answers to diseases, Artificial Intelligence (AI) to perform tasks with greater precision than clinicians and free up their time to dedicate to other tasks that only a human can perform. These are the promises that the technological advances of recent years hold for medicine. But how can they be implemented? What experiences are being carried out in Spanish hospitals?

Four doctors from different specialties and hospitals across various autonomous communities shared their projects on Tuesday in Madrid, showcasing how they have implemented them in real-world clinical practice. They did so at the third Gate2Health meeting . This is the name of GSK’s open innovation community , comprised of various healthcare innovation entities that collaborate with healthcare centers to bring innovation to daily practice.

At the meeting, organized by GSK in collaboration with IE University, both organizations presented the GSK-IE Biopharma & AI Gateway program, designed to accelerate the research, development, and commercialization of new treatments.

A simple device has made it possible to digitize images of bone marrow samples and apply AI tools to perform cell counts “much faster” than a hematologist

Technology, innovation, and clinical experts have focused on collaboration between the biopharmaceutical industry and academia to ensure that innovation impacts clinical knowledge and improves healthcare systems. This is the case with the project being carried out by Dr. Leonor Arenillas , head of the Hematopathology Section at the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona.

Developed through GSK’s innovation platform, a “simple” device has been deployed in 14 hospitals. This device integrates into the hematology optical laboratory to digitize images of bone marrow samples, send them to the cloud, and apply AI tools “that allow us to perform bone marrow counts much faster than a hematologist and aid in diagnosis ” explained Dr. Arenillas.

From her experience, she sees an improvement in equitable access to more accurate diagnoses, as the device can be used in regional hospitals, “opening the door to telediagnosis” and freeing hematologists from cell counting “so they can focus on patient care.”

COPD, along with asthma, is one of the respiratory diseases with the highest percentage of patients who are unable to control it. Crises and exacerbations lead to emergency room visits and hospital admissions, especially at certain times of the year. The project being developed by Dr. Alberto Fernández , head of the Pulmonology Department at the Álvaro Cunqueiro Hospital in Vigo, allows the center to use applications to predict what resources it will need in the coming days in anticipation of an increase in COPD cases.

Dr. Alberto Fernández’s service has “tools to predict with the reliability of a five- or seven-day weather forecast and to plan what resources we will need.”

“It allows us to establish tools to predict with the reliability of a five- or seven-day weather forecast and plan what resources we will need ,” the pulmonologist explained. This helps organize care according to demand, “which in COPD is highly variable because it has seasonal components .” Furthermore, the project platform provides them with feedback on the environmental impact of the physician’s work. “Useful solutions for the clinical aspect are being added ,” Dr. Fernández noted.

Being able to classify the risk of a patient with a chronic respiratory disease, such as severe asthma, based on their variables, and being able to establish a communication channel through an integrated platform, facilitates the work of pulmonologists and allows them to “make faster decisions ,” stated Dr. Mariana Muñoz, a pulmonologist at Bellvitge University Hospital in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona). This is precisely what they have achieved at their center with the innovative project they have implemented, from which they are already seeing results. “In any chronic disease, if you anticipate, you win ,” she pointed out.

In their case, telemedicine allows them to “detect minute changes that will produce an event” in the patient and assess their risk in advance, so that worsening and hospitalization can be avoided.

Dr. Mariana Muñoz: “In any chronic disease, if you anticipate it, you win.”

Prevention, through the ability to stay ahead of the curve and avoid disease, is the key to the project being developed by Dr. Inmaculada Salcedo , head of the Preventive Medicine department at the Reina Sofía Hospital in Córdoba. Through a task automation platform, they are successfully identifying and vaccinating vulnerable patients and those at risk of infections that can lead to very serious illnesses. “We started with meningococcal disease and now we’re working on the shingles vaccine,” Dr. Salcedo noted.

By automating these tasks, they are now able to accomplish in five minutes what previously took half a morning . In addition to the time saved, the value lies in preventing vulnerable patients from going unvaccinated and becoming ill, with the associated health consequences, and generating savings for the healthcare system. “The patient you prevent through primary or secondary prevention will always be cost-effective,” the specialist pointed out.

A task automation tool allows the Reina Sofía Hospital in Córdoba to identify and vaccinate vulnerable patients

Not everything is easy when a public hospital tries to implement innovation projects. The four doctors deal with different barriers on a daily basis . These range from the “necessary but rigid” regulatory framework that makes signing a contract with a technology company “a headache ,” to the “resistance to change” among healthcare professionals themselves, as Dr. Arenillas mentioned.

The continuity of projects once the initial funding and push run out, the design of tools that do not take into account the reality of medical consultations, always with a lack of time, and the short-term vision of the managers, are some of the obstacles that clinicians have put on the table.

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(Featured image by Tai Bui via Unsplash)

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First published in iSanidad. A third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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