At the annual Dutch AI Congress on 12 April 2023, it was announced that PERISCOPE was the winner of the competition for AI solutions for healthcare innovation. The competition is an initiative of the Netherlands AI Coalition, together with Zorgverzekeraars Nederland, the Netherlands Patients’ Federation and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, aiming to find the AI innovations that have helped most in advancing the goals of the integral Care Agreement.
Helping drive the healthcare transformation
The challenges facing the Dutch healthcare system include increasing demand for care, an ageing population, staff shortages, rising healthcare costs and high administrative burdens. The transformation of healthcare is crucial for ensuring and improving the accessibility, quality and affordability of care. PERISCOPE is an AI system that can reuse existing hospital data to predict accurately whether a patient will get an infection after their surgery. This lets care providers look after their patients more proactively, more efficiently and with a greater understanding of the situation. The AI system helps tackle major challenges in healthcare, such as quality, suitable care and optimum use of care professionals.
Awarding the prize
The winner – PERISCOPE – received the award from Dianda Veldman, director of the Netherlands Patients’ Federation. The prize consists of €10,000 in cash plus backing from the organising parties in getting the solution more widely implemented. Healthplus.ai, the organisation behind PERISCOPE, has already been invited as the winner to speak at the Data Driven Healthcare event. All those involved in the competition would like to congratulate Healthplus.ai and are looking forward to the wider implementation of their AI solution!
In 2019, between 5 and 20% of patients admitted acquired an infection, resulting in longer stays and more discomfort for the patient, as well as occupied beds in the hospital – beds that are in high demand. That makes it a solution with a lot of potential. It shows the power of AI and on top of that, it is not merely promising: the first implementations are already demonstrating that it is effective. The good cooperation that PERISCOPE aims for with the IT providers at hospitals is also to be commended, ensuring that the solution is not just for a single moment but is an integral part of the decision support that care professionals use in their actions.
Praise for the nominees
From the numerous submissions, the evaluation committee selected four nominees: Ardim Hip, TONOS, Attendi and PERISCOPE. The committee believes that these are solutions that each have great potential in their own way to improve healthcare in the Netherlands by improving appropriate use of AI. The NL AIC Health and Care working group will also assist the other three nominees in taking their AI solutions one step further and making them successful.
