Annual Report 2020

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Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
Raphael Sznitman

"It is our mission to develop innovations in the area of AI to improve the life of future patients."

Health and medicine

For better patient care

The University of Bern and the Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, have founded the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (CAIM). Using artificial intelligence it will develop new medical technologies to enable tailor-made and efficient patient care.


More and more data is being created for an ever greater number of patients. There is a lot that physicians could integrate into treatment, but have not been able to because of the sheer amount of data. "This is exactly where artificial intelligence (AI) comes in: AI can condense and link large amounts of data and thus unlock its full potential to improve healthcare," explains Raphael Sznitman, Director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine CAIM. The CAIM was founded in November 2020.

AI enables better decisions

For example, AI can integrate health data such as age, gender, weight – as well as vital signs, medical imaging and genetic factors – and within seconds provide doctors with tips such as "Be careful: A different therapy would probably have fewer side effects!" Or it can help provide patients with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, with tools to better manage their everyday life.

In COVID-19 research, AI can be used to split those who have contracted the disease into groups. This means that those who are likely to suffer more from the coronavirus can be treated better from the beginning. This information enables physicians to make decisions on the right diagnosis, the ideal therapy.

 

Did you know?

"AI detects COVID-19 on X-ray images more reliably than humans: A study by Bern University Hospital and the University of Bern has demonstrated that AI was able to correctly assign 97% of COVID-19 cases in X-ray images whereas physicians were able to assign 53%. This suggests that the computer can detect something in the images that escapes the human eye."

“For this reason, it is our mission to develop innovations in the area of AI to improve the life of future patients,” says Sznitman. To this end, CAIM combines research and clinical practice and makes use of the strong networking of Bern as a medical center in order to bring innovations to healthcare as quickly as possible.

CAIM is also expanding training and will be at the forefront of equipping a new generation of healthcare professionals and researchers with digital skills. Furthermore, a research fund will provide targeted support for projects that solve current challenges in the healthcare system and focus on concrete patient benefits.

Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (CAIM)

The Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine is a research, teaching and translation platform for medical technology that uses AI to deliver better care to patients and facilitate the work of doctors and nurses. CAIM capitalizes on the unique constellation in Bern that joins players from the scientific, healthcare and industry domains. It was inaugurated in January 2021 as a Center of the University of Bern’s medical faculty and the Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, with the University Psychiatry Services (UPD) and the Swiss Institute for Translational and Entrepreneurial Medicine, sitem-insel, as partners. Part of Bern’s initiative for digitalization in healthcare, CAIM is a virtual center connecting engineers, physicians and scientists in the area of AI in medicine and providing them with resources and access to infrastructure. By bundling transdisciplinary know-how from the Bern Biomedical Engineering Network, it promotes and expands projects dedicated to the potential of AI technology for healthcare. CAIM will foster commercialization of AI technology innovation, support start-up incubation and create sustained value through best in class research, translation and economic growth.

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