Deakin system adds critical intelligence in trauma wards

DEAKIN University has a stake in an AI-based emergency treatment monitoring system helping trauma teams to save lives.

Professor Kon Mouzakis told a showcase of industry and academic collaboration yesterday that the Trauma Reception and Resuscitation System was being sold to hospitals in India, China and Saudi Arabia.

The system provides hospi- tal trauma teams with access to computerised decision support for the first 30 minutes of trauma management.

Prof Mouzakis, the co-director of Deakin’s Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute, said the trauma system had been shown to cut errors of omission by 21 per cent and cut blood transfusions by 30 per cent. It also significantly reduced the time patients spent in intensive care, with the outcomes equating to saving five or six lives a year.

He said the system, devel- oped with The Alfred hospital, had been installed in the largest trauma hospital in New Delhi and was also being sold to hospitals in China and Saudi Arabia.

“In India we improved their outcomes by a staggering 70 per cent,” Prof Mouzakis said.

Prof Mouzakis was one of speakers at ignite+Deakin, one in a series of showcases at Victorian universities hosted by the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry to encourage more business and university collaboration.

The Deakin event had a focus on artificial intelligence, or AI, and machine learning, areas where the university is considered a world leader.

Prof Mouzakis said the Trauma Reception and Resuscitation System was an example of how AI was helping humans, not replacing them.

The system involves patient data including vital signs and confirmed or unconfirmed diagnoses and treatments being entered into the system, with computerised algorithms prompting the trauma team in real time to confirm the state of the patient, perform procedures and administer drugs as well as assisting with diagnosing injuries.

“We are not getting rid of the human; we are not getting rid of jobs; we are just going to make the human a little more efficient,” Prof Mouzakis said.

Victorian Chamber of Commerce CEO Mark Stone said the Ignite series would produce a bank of material to promote examples of successful collaborations around the world.