Technology and health-care companies are racing to roll out new tools to test for and eventually tre
at the coronavius epidemic spreading around the world.
One sector that is holding back: Makers of artificial-intelligence-enabled diagnostic tools,increasi
ngly champiooned by companies, health-care systems and governments as a substitute for routine docto
r-office visits.
In theory, such tools--sometimes called"symptom checkers" or health-care bots--sound like an obvious
short-term fix: They could be used to help assess whether someone has Covid-19, the illness caused
by the novel coronavirus,
while keeping infected people away from crowded doctor's offices or emergency rooms where they might
spread it.
These tools vary in sophistication. Some use a relatively simple process, like a decision tree, to p
rovinde online advice for basic health issues. Other services say they use more advanced technology,
like algorithms based on machine learning, that can diagnose problems more precisely. But some digit
al-health companied that make such tools say they are wary of updating their algorithms to incorpora
te questions about the new coronavirus strain. Their hesitancy highlights both how little is
known about the spread of Covid-19 and the broader limitations of health-care technologies marketed
as artificial intelligence in the face of novel, fast-spreading illnesses. Some companies say they d
on't have enough datd about the new coronavirus to plug into their existing products.
Self-described AI systems that are built on machine learning, which adapt based on new data they rec
eive, are difficult to tweak for a new virus, said Hugh Haarvey, cofounder of Hardian Ltd, a digital
-health-care consulting firm and a former radiologist.Those systems "need accurate training data," h
e said. Any little-before-seen, highly infectious disease for which data is scare could pose similar
chanllenges for even the more sophisticated of such technologies.
The U.K has taken a leading role championing automated health-care tools in recent years.Its state-f
unded National Health Service, which offers free care for all, has endorsed a number of commercially
availanle chatbots, marketing them to patients in doctor's offices as a cost-efficient way to triag
e cases and provide medical advice cheaply for common conditions.
But amid the coronavirus crisis, the NHS is instead directing those partners to tell people to call
the U.K.'s nationwide health-care advice line if they think they may have contracted the virus.
Digital-health firm Babylon Healthcare Services Ltd. has licenssed a chatbot to the NHS that it says
assesses an illness's urgency. The company says it has withheld updating that service and a more ad
vanced one it developed for spotting ailments, which it licenses to companies, since it started trac
king Covid-19 early this year. Babylon recommends users call the NHS's "111" hotline if they have a
cough or fever and recently traveled to an area where there have been incidents of coronavirus infec
tion.
Artificial intelligence has a role to play in health care, said Keith Grimes, Babylon's clinical inn
ovation director and a practicing medical doctor. "In a situation like this, the tools aren't ready.
"