The outbreak of COVID-19 provides an opportunity for the development of smart medicine in Taiwan.  According to Stan Shih, the founder of Acer Inc., the lack of common language between IT and medical professionals once caused the bottleneck for the development of smart medicine.   Ethan Tu, the founder of Taiwan AI Lab, pointed out that the COVID-19 outbreak has brought together the professionals of these two disciplines to jointly create the world’s first rapid and automated COVID-19 testing system.  The medical industry and the semi-conductor industry in Taiwan have contributed greatly to the world’s control over the spread of COVID-19, said Shih.

Those two industries used to work independently.  There was no common language for them to integrate.  However, the outbreak of COVID-19 opened up a dialogue between medical and IT professionals.  The rapid and automated COVID-19 testing system is a result of the collaboration between Taiwan AI Lab and hospitals.  By uploading the image of chest X-ray, the AI system will identify the area possibly infected with pneumonia.  Infected patients will then be further examined for COVID-19.

This world’s first rapid and automated COVID-19 testing system has now been installed in the NTUH.  Other medical centers and the NHIA are going to adopt this system, too.

Tu expressed that the medical and IT professionals worked closely during the development of the system because they had a common goal of helping Taiwan in controlling the disease.

This collaboration has sparked a new development of smart medicine.  So far, the combination of AI and medicine is commonly applied to image reading.  After discussing with Dr Chen Chi-Mai, the Vice Premier, the Taiwan AI Lab developed a platform for the searches of new uses of old drugs.  This platform, which includes the information of 1800 NHI-reimbursed drugs, aims to help medical professionals to find treatments for COVID-19 among existing drugs.

AI can also be used to help tracking the infection source.  The Taiwan AI Lab is working with relevant agencies on virus sequencing.  The result will help to track the source of infection.

【2020-05-28 / United Daily News】