Digital Health Podcast- Royal Society of Medicine – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode Dr Kath Halliday- President of the Royal College of Radiologists discusses how AI is impacting radiology.

Discussion points include:

- The AI technologies that are being used in NHS radiology derpatments

- Challenges faced with deploying AI in the NHS

- How AI is likely to change the nature of radiologists' work

- The use of autonomous AI in radiology

Links from the Royal College of Radiologists:

- AI Registry

- AI education course

- AI Code of Conduct

This special edition of the RSM digital health podcast is a joint episode with the hosts of the Dev & Doc podcast focussed on Explainable AI in healthcare.

Key discussion topics:

- The confusion around what explainable AI is

- The question of whether it is really necessary in healthcare

- Exploring different explainability techniques

- The future of explainability and what’s needed to get there

If you like this episode then I'd love to hear your comments and and do check out the Dev & Doc podcast where doctors and engineers unpick healthcare AI related topics

This episodes discusses the pragmatic realities of conducting post-market surveillance for AI medical devices. It features a conversation with Dr Dan Mullarkey, Medical Director at Skin Analytics, a company specialising in AI for skin cancer detection.

In our conversation you’ll hear Dan explain how Skin Analytics have tackled some difficult questions such as:

How do you decide the appropriate sensitivity levels of an AI device?

How you can ensure you’re given access to the ongoing outcome data you need from NHS organisations to conduct appropriate PMS 

What are the challenges of dealing with real world data analysis compared to traditional research approaches?

This episode features a conversation focussed on copilots to assist clinicians with Dr Dom Pimenta who is a cardiologist and CEO of Tortus the creators of OSLER, an AI agent for clinicians 

Conversation topics include:

• Clinical liability for AI-augmented decision making
• How can we protect clinicians from the impact of AI misdirection and automation bias
• The practical realities of clinically evaluating LLM tools
• The surprising use of clinical communication skills in LLM prompt engineering

In this episode Dr Chris Kelly- Clinical Research Scientist at Google discusses key barriers to the widespread adoption of AI in healthcare.

In 2019 Chris wrote an article titled ‘Key challenges for delivering clinical impact with artificial intelligence’ and the episode covers how Chris might approach this article if he was writing it again 5 years on.

Chris breaks down the barriers into 6 buckets:

- People factors & change management

- Machine learning and technical factors

- Safety and monitoring of AI once deployed

- Governance

- Regulation

- Business challenges

Mammography AI paper discussed during the episode

In this episode Stephen Carter delivers a masterclass in all things IP for Healthtech and AI

This includes 

• How to decide whether to apply for a patent 
• Why you need to be wary of copyright when using open-source code
• The myth that you cannot patent AI products. 
• Key pitfalls that companies and organisations of all sizes fall into when thinking about IP

In this episode Haris Shuaib- Head of Clinical Scientific Computing at Guy's and St Thomas'​ NHS Foundation Trust shares his vision of what is needed to build an AI-ready NHS.

Haris shares the story of how he created the first-ever NHS specialist medical AI team and discusses the unique value that individuals with a dual skillset of clinical and technical expertise bring to the NHS, allowing it to become:

- an intelligent AI customer

- a learning healthcare system

- a developer of in-house algorithms to solve problems that wouldn't be tackled by commercial AI companies.

Haris also shares the importance of 3 key factors in the success of AI at scale: People, Policy and Platforms

This episode features a conversation with Sara Nelson- Programme Director at DigitalHealth.London focussing on how to pitch healthtech to the NHS.

Sara shares pitching tips based on her experience working within a NHS healthtech accelerator and as deputy CNIO at NHSX

Topics include:

- Navigating the NHS procurement landscape

- Identifying budget holders- why the CEO may not be the best person to pitch to

- Why being too flexible can put buyers off

- The power of effective follow up

- The risk of offering a free pilot

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Bob Wachter, a prominent physician and academic known for his significant contributions to the field of healthcare and technology.

Dr Wachter has authored several influential books including the brilliant "The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine's Computer Age" (2015)

In 2016, Dr. Robert Wachter was commissioned by the UK government to deliver Wachter Review aimed to assess the state of health information technology (IT) in the National Health Service (NHS) and provide recommendations for its improvement. 

As we mark seven years since the Wachter Review, Dr Wachter joins me to reflect on the progress made, future potential, and address the persistent challenges facing the NHS.

The conversation explores the journey that the NHS has come on since 2016 including the widespread introduction of electronic health records, patient health record access and development of NHS CCIOs. It also explores the future of AI enabled healthcare, the challenge of the so-called productivity paradox and whether AI is likely to result tin evolution or revolution of care delivery.

This episode features a conversation with Jeanette Kusel- Director for Scientific advice at NICE the national institute of health and care excellence, and addresses the role that NICE  has to play with regards to digital health technologies

Discussion topics include:

• The difference between the evaluation required for regulatory approval (CE/UKCA marking) and NICE approval
• Innovative new approaches to assessing healthtech innovations including:
• The NICE META tool
• Early value assessments
• The AI and digital regulations service
• NICE Evidence Standards Framework
• What is involved in a NICE approval process for digital health technologies 
• Common mistakes that companies make when evaluating their products and how these can be avoided

Links:

META tool: https://meta.nice.org.uk/

Early value assessments: https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/eva-for-medtech

AI and digital regulations service: https://transform.england.nhs.uk/ai-lab/ai-lab-programmes/regulating-the-ai-ecosystem/the-ai-and-digital-regulations-service/

NICE evidence standards framework: https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/our-programmes/evidence-standards-framework-for-digital-health-technologies

NICE Real World Evidence framework: https://www.nice.org.uk/corporate/ecd9/chapter/overview