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【2020 Application Example】 Latitude X Huayan Technology Jointly Develop AI for Predictive Maintenance of Machinery, Improving Utilization Rates of Hemodialysis Machines

Taiwan has the highest rate of dialysis in the world! Keeping dialysis machines functioning properly is the top priority for reducing risks

According to the latest annual report released by the US Renal Data System (USRDS), Taiwan has the highest dialysis rate in the world. In 2018, acute and chronic kidney disease patients spent NT$51.378 billion on health insurance, and the number of dialysis patients in the country surged past 90,000!

When kidneys function no longer, replacing kidney function either through transplantation or dialysis is necessary, with about 90% of patients choosing hemodialysis (commonly referred to as 'dialysis'); Patients generally require treatment three times a week for 4-5 hours per session at specific medical facilities (hemodialysis centers, commonly known as 'dialysis centers'), which is a high-risk medical procedure.

During hemodialysis at the centers, unexpected events directly affect patient medical safety and quality of treatment, consuming medical resources and manpower to resolve or correct. Reducing these incidents during hemodialysis is a major requirement for these centers. The two most common incidents involve dialysis equipment problems and patient complications, with most technical issues attributed to the hemodialysis machines.

Hemodialysis machines are structurally complex and prone to safety hazards

The design of a hemodialysis machine is intricate and precise, featuring an integration of fluid mechanics, electronics, mechanics, and optics in its extracorporeal circulation system. Due to long operating hours, the machine is susceptible to thermal and chemical corrosion, causing wear and tear and potentially impairing the entire dialysis system's operational performance, with multiple risks and safety hazards.

When a hemodialysis machine experiences an 'event,' whether minor or major, reactive maintenance is triggered. Not only do patients have to switch to an alternate bed, but during the approximately 2 to 3 days of maintenance downtime, the affected beds become unavailable, thereby reducing the number of available beds and causing scheduling issues for already booked patients.

Any 'event' involving hemodialysis machines is a significant concern for centers, thus improving the equipment utilization rate of these machines is a pressing issue!

Using AI for Predictive Maintenance to Improve Utilization Rates of Hemodialysis Machines

Development Workflow

▲Development Workflow

By utilizing big data and AI predictive framework to adopt a proactive 'predictive maintenance' approach instead of a reactive 'fix-on-failure' approach, it helps reduce the occurrence of irregular incidents, improving the availability of hemodialysis machines and thereby hoping to handle their malfunctions better, conserving medical resources, manpower, and time, while improving treatment quality and protecting patient life safety.

Through AI predictions, maintenance of hemodialysis machines can be categorized as 'Predictive Maintenance' and 'Real-Time Fault Diagnosis.' 'Predictive Maintenance' refers to regular checks of the machine's status using big data and an AI prediction model during the daily pre-heating of the machines, delivering health status alerts if unhealthy trends in parameters are detected. 'Real-Time Fault Diagnosis' involves analyzing data and equipment status during dialysis using the AI model to ascertain if predictive maintenance is necessary; when an issue arises, it can be diagnosed and non-major events immediately resolved.

Solution Diagram

▲Solution Diagram

With an innovative service mode, promoted across dialysis centers in Taiwan or the Asia region

The AI predictive maintenance model can reduce abnormal events during dialysis, optimize on-site resources, increase available hemodialysis bed numbers, and consequently provide further safety for patients. For 'patients,' it reduces the incidence of mishaps causing harm and discomfort; for 'medical staff,' it enhances the ability to handle such events easily, improving job satisfaction and quality; and for 'hospitals,' it fosters improved medical quality, patient satisfaction, and cost savings, while minimizing medical disputes.

'Increasing the Availability of Hemodialysis Equipment' is crucial for dialysis centers. AI predictive maintenance as an innovative service model can be promoted extensively among dialysis centers with large patient volumes across Taiwan or Asia, also integrating individual dialysis statuses, including backend maintenance, dispatching, and parts inventories, planning a new cloud service operation model.

「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only. Translation date:2024-05-19」

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【導入案例】救命急如星火 AI病危系統監測掌握黃金搶救期
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60-year-old Mr Huang was admitted to the hospital due to a stroke After lying in the intensive care unit for two weeks, his condition suddenly took a turn for the worse After rescue, he was lucky enough to survive In fact, with the assistance of AI critical illness early warning technology, hospitals can detect signs and take timely and accurate medical measures 6-8 hours before a patient's heart stops, which can greatly reduce the chance of death in the hospital The deterioration of the condition is a process that evolves over time, and its subtle changes are by no means without context Previous research reports show that about 60 to 70 of inpatients who experience unexpected in-hospital cardiac arrest had symptoms 6 to 8 hours before their cardiac arrest, but only a quarter of them were recognized by clinical staff Detection and discovery, therefore, there is a need for a risk warning tool or system that can be used earlier and continuously to monitor the condition, alert medical staff to pay attention to subtle changes in the patient's condition at any time, and take timely and accurate intervention measures before the condition progresses to effectively reduce adverse events or the risk of serious adverse events Unexpected deterioration cannot be detected early Acute and severe patients often undergo unpredictable changes, and timely detection or prediction of potential acute and severe patients is an important issue The currently commonly used clinical assessment method is Modified Early Warning Score MEWS, which uses simple physiological parameter assessment including heartbeat, respiratory rate, systolic blood pressure, body temperature, urine output and state of consciousness to screen out high-risk patients, and has been proven to be predictive Patient clinical prognosis MEWS is a scoring mechanism with a single time point and a standardized formula However, the AI crisis warning system developed by Boxin Medical Electronics - Hospital Emergency and Critical Care Early Warning Index System EWS is designed to predict patient status with immediate response , collect the physiological data of patients over time for deep learning, find the best prediction model, and improve the overall accuracy Boxin Medical Electronics uses a big data analysis model to build an early warning system EWS, IoT Internet of Things and 5G communication technology, allowing medical staff to remotely monitor the physiological status of patients through communication equipment, and monitor emergency and severe cases quickly The patient's condition changes and the golden rescue period of 6-8 hours before cardiac arrest can be grasped After Boxin Medical Electronics introduces AI visual interpretation, unmanned operation can greatly reduce medical manpower The AI technology developed by Boxin Medical Electronics is the Gradient Boosting Ensemble Learning System GBELS to build an early warning system It is a learning-based EWS prediction algorithm developed by the company, which is an integrated learning Ensemble Learning and is classified as supervised learning, providing the following three functions 1 Early warning risk notification is used to analyze representative data using GBELS to provide an early risk score so that medical staff can conduct immediate clinical assessment and provide appropriate medical treatment 2 Reduce medical manpower Collect continuous physiological monitoring data, such as heartbeat, respiration, blood pressure and blood oxygen concentration, etc, to reduce the time for medical staff to write cases 3 Combine IOT logistics network and 5G communication technology to quickly transmit medical data such as monitoring parameters and imaging data, and assist medical staff to monitor changes in patients' condition remotely through communication equipment AI critical illness system monitoring to master the golden treatment period Boxin Medical Electronics stated that assessing the severity of the disease in acute and severe patients is a complex task, and patients often experience unpredictable changes Clinical medical staff often judge the condition based on their own clinical experience or intuition, which lacks science and objectivity, resulting in the inability to correctly identify and timely detect potentially acute and severe patients, resulting in or misdiagnosis leading to increased in-hospital mortality of patients The introduction of an AI early critical illness warning system can assist emergency and critical care medical staff to correctly predict the patient's condition and allow patients to receive the care they need immediately This can reduce the manpower arrangement of the emergency and critical care ward at the same time and reduce labor costs In addition, the easy-to-carry design will help the system be introduced into ambulances, home care and other places in the future, so that emergency patients can receive appropriate care earlier Other departments within the hospital can also develop new applications around this system, which can effectively accelerate the development and promotion of smart medical technology With the COVID-19 epidemic still raging in many countries around the world, this system can also help hospitals in various places to operate more effectively Caring for and monitoring the condition of critically ill patients In addition to AI critical illness warning, Boxin Medical Electronics has also developed AI image interpretation - Medical Physiological Monitor Life Cycle Compliance Testing AVS, which uses AI image interpretation technology to develop automated quality inspection of life support medical equipment The instrument solves the time-consuming problem of medical instrument testing It can reduce testing time by 70, increase the number of tests by 3 times, and effectively reduce labor costs by 50 At the same time, it is 100 compliant with regulatory requirements, and gradually solves the shortage of manpower and medical resources in the medical field , medical work overload and other issues It has now taken root in mainland China and is actively preparing for its launch in Europe It will develop towards the Japanese and American markets in the future Boxin Medical Electronics develops AI image interpretation-medical physiological monitor life cycle compliance testing AVS to solve the time-consuming problem of medical instrument testing and can reduce testing by 70 time At this stage, Boxin Medical's smart medical technology has been introduced into medical hospitals including Hsinchu MacKay, Changkei, Dongyuan General Hospital, Kaohsiung University of Technology Affiliated Hospital, Zhenxin Hospital, Hsintai Hospital, Taipei Medical University Affiliated Hospital, etc GE HealthcareInc, an internationally renowned medical materials manufacturer, and Mindray Medical, China's largest medical materials manufacturer, are both representative customers of Boxin Medical Electronics 「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only Translation date:2024-05-19」