How AI is Being Used To Reduce The Number Of Preventable Chronic Diseases In Care Homes

August 10 th 2022: The Carer   Click to view

By Faramarz Farhoodi, CEO of AI Nexus Healthcare 

Elderly care in the UK is facing a crisis. Our ageing population is growing rapidly, and staffing shortages are putting more pressure than ever on an already fragile sector. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the power to transform elderly care and the technology to make it possible is already here. By tracking and analysing health data such as vital signs, sleep patterns, movement or bed exits, AI has the ability to provide real-time, medically informed, patient-specific recommendations, bringing relief to overwhelmed caregivers. The same cutting-edge technology can beused to reveal undetected or developing health problems,empowering staff to prevent some illnesses before they become deadly chronic illnesses. Per the World Health Organization, 80% of chronic diseases are preventable proving that a shift from cure-focused care to prevention-focused care is not only smart, it’s necessary.
Thanks to years of expert development, care providers can now carry out complex health assessments on residents through something as simple as scanning their faces on a smartphone.

WHAT MAKES AI ENABLED CARE STAND OUT FROM TRADITIONAL TELEMEDICINE AND REMOTE MONITORING?
Telemedicine and remote monitoring have played an important role in recent years within the sphere of social care and are representations of the inevitable shift towards an increasingly digital age. As the capabilities of technology continue to grow, new, more advanced innovations are entering the market that can provide, in some cases, life-saving supplementary tools for more traditional methods of care. Such technology can offer care providers a level of insight into a resident’s health status that they otherwise might not have the time or resources to collect.
Well beyond traditional telemedicine and remote monitoring AI-enabled care can help identify early warning signals that prompt preventative action. Here at AI Nexus Healthcare, we’re a company that’s focused on empowering prevention. This has seen us create AI powered software that monitors and analyses vital signs and health data to create what is essentially a ‘check engine’ light for the human body, helping to flag the often undetected early warning signs of more serious medical issues and helping prevent unnecessary adverse events by up to 70%. Naturally, within a care setting, health complications are more common, and this technology can help detect signs of serious illness including strokes, congestive heart failure, Bell’s Palsy, atrial fibrillation, and signs of sepsis — whilst also preventing falls by up to 33%.

SO HOW DOES THIS TECHNOLOGY WORK?
Informed by the expertise of a team of world class medical doctors, the AI is capable of providing health recommendations by integrating biometric data and translating it into useful guidance — a far more in-depth approach than most health monitoring technology on the market, which simply provides numbers and basic data. Thanks to our system’s complex design, it can also interpret vital signs and behavioural data straight from a smartphone camera or from more than 100 other external collection points to make personalised, practical recommendations. The overarching purpose for the application of AI in social care is to turn early warning signs of physical and mental ailments into actionable advice that could prevent a potentially harmful outcome.
With the elderly population continuing to increase exponentially in the UK, there will inevitably be more pressure on social care in the future. With this in mind, artificial intelligence has the unique opportunity to support the sector by providing quick, accurate and simple solutions to the everyday challenges of care.

Faramarz Farhoodi, founder of AI Nexus Healthcare, has more than three decades of experience in the field of AI, having led more than 1,000 person-years of AI application development across the defence, healthcare, manufacturing and finance industries – with his experience as diverse as helping to build NATO command and control systems to overseeing Amazon.com’s largest commercial account. With 80% of chronic disease being preventable and a global shortage of healthcare professionals, Faramarz and AI Nexus Healthcare are using a specialised AI skillset to transform healthcare systems, focusing on intervention and prevention.