Innovate Health Forum 2024: AI is turning prevention and diagnostic for the better

Digitization and Artificial Intelligence have been implemented in the medical system for several years, but the Romanian medical system has problems related to hospitals and official institutions. How we could bring the health system to the level that technology currently offers us was the theme of the first panel of Innovate Health 2024, and the speakers explained how we could use technology to make the system more efficient and better for all those who they need it. 

Mihai Marcu, CEO at MedLife, explained what we should do, viewing the differences between the public system and the private sector, including a big change in the system, namely the reduction of the number of small, regional hospitals.

”I think that Romania needs five large hospitals and should close about 200 small hospitals, from cities with less than 10,000 inhabitants, and which do nothing but send patients further to big hospitals. Turn them into palliatives, centers for the elderly, whatever is needed, but currently for any condition they put you in an ambulance and send you to a big hospital. It is a very large drain of money from the public budget in this way.

The private health system currently employs about 45% of the total employed medical personnel and will probably exceed 50% next year. This shows us that the importance of the private system is increasing, but it should not be understood that the system can do without the large emergency hospitals of the country. They exist in all the developed countries of Europe and we cannot do without them. But there are various problems in the public system; I understand that using 200 million euros of public investments intended for digitization, the state hospitals each chose a different software and installed it. You will understand what this means for the National Insurance House, which requires a report and not only does it not receive it online, but also receives it in a different form from each public hospital. But it’s good and that’s how digitization is done. Anyway, here the difference is very big between the public and the private system, but I hope that the public system will be able to give results. We, Medlife, have the analysis results and everything that has been done at us for the last almost 30 years, since 1995, but the public system cannot give us the results of what it did with the patients. Moreover, there is no data older than 3-4 years in the public system

Romania has smart people who find very good digital solutions for the medical sector. The first worldwide solution for identifying skin diseases was made by a Romanian. Technology entered Romania very quickly and I can say that we already have very advanced technology compared to developing countries. We have 18 Davinci robots in Romania, a large number. The large private medical operators provide the results of the analyzes within an hour, so you don’t have to wait long.

Read more about

MedicalCOR develops in Romania a unique teeth replacement technology in just 5 days

read more

On the research side, Romania is in a good area, it’s not for nothing that we have programming hubs all over the country. We are in a position to use big data, but we need the implementation of solutions in the system. On the imaging side, the learning capacity of the machines is extraordinary and will be able to analyze millions of data so as to give a viable result and faster than that from the doctor. That’s why the car and the man complement each other, they don’t eliminate each other.

I think we will also catch new products like those from sci-fi movies, where with a remote control you can scan a person and give a diagnosis about what they are suffering from. I don’t know if it will be in 2 years or in 10 years, but it will exist. Of course, it does not mean that doctors will disappear, because we still need them, but technology will advance regardless of what else happens. Digitization exceeds politics, we need data and digital solutions, we need that in a few years, through the database and their interpretation, a doctor will be able to tell a patient that he has a risk of developing a cardiovascular disease in someone and that he needs to do certain investigations.”

Mihai Dragoi, Digital Business Manager at Siemens Helathineers, talked about the latest trends in the medical system and and showed how we can harness the power of new technologies.

”Regarding the trends in the health system, first of all we have to take a few steps back and see how it looks at the moment. Official data from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that by 2050 we will exceed 10 billion people globally. Moreover, life expectancy has increased by 10-11 percent since 2018. In the health system, the WHO shows that in 2030 we will have about 10 million vacancies in the health system, and many of those employed are overloaded.

We, at Siemens Healthineers, try to meet the needs of the medical system by adopting the latest trends. I can say that, lately, there is an avalanche of digitization and AI solutions, solutions that are implemented, but not necessarily interconnected, which creates a problem. But it is clear that the only solution today is digitization. A few days ago I was looking at an article from the USA, where they published the manufacturers that have the most patents in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in medical devices, and Siemens Healthineers is in first place with over 400 patents. One of the most prominent solutions helps the clinicians in automating all the routine processes and they also do a thorough and structured investigation to help the doctor make a diagnosis in the shortest possible time.

Continuing on the idea of ​​digitization, after the COVID pandemic there is a heightened interest in the implementation of telemedicine, given the market’s need. We also have such solutions, with applications that bring everything in real time to where it is needed. Tehnologis will not replace the staff, but it will facilitate and ease the medical act for those who work in the medical system. Reducing the interaction time between the doctor and the patient leads to a reduction in empathy, that’s why we try through data analysis solutions to offer more time to the medical staff to interact with the patient instead of sitting to analyze the data.

The Generative AI component can already go further in the area of ​​prevention, based on the data it has. If we looked more at the area of ​​prevention, we could find out in time the possibility of the appearance of a disease and it would be much more difficult to treat.”

George Manea, Senior Managing Associate at KPMG Legal Romania, explained that as we see many projects on digitalization and AI, we are still far from developed countries, but we can close the gap in the coming years.