Emergency departments and minor injury units across Northern Ireland are now benefitting from AI that helps clinicians accurately and efficiently identify bone fractures – deployed rapidly and at scale through Sectra Amplifier Services.
Sectra Amplifier Services, provided by Northern Ireland’s enterprise imaging partner Sectra, enables healthcare organisations to integrate AI tools directly into their existing imaging workflows. Using the service, the region’s Business Services Organisation (BSO) Northern Ireland Picture Archiving and Communication System (NIPACS+) Programme has rolled out BoneView, a fracture detection algorithm developed by AI firm Gleamer, across all five of the region’s geographic Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts.
The deployment follows a successful trial in the Northern Health and Social Care Trust, where evaluation showed the algorithm helping busy ED professionals read x-rays more accurately, with more clinicians delivering correct diagnoses first time for patients.
Fractures can sometimes be missed from x-rays that are read in emergency settings, resulting in patients being recalled once images go on to be reported by specialist radiologists and radiographers.
However, clinicians in the emergency department using the AI recorded a significant increase in diagnostic accuracy, with the AI helping to reduce both reading time and errors in detecting acute fractures, effusions and dislocations.
The BSO in partnership with Digital Health and Care NI (DHCNI) commissioned Sectra to provide the complete enterprise imaging solution for NIPACS+. The region-wide AI deployment is first to take place in the NIPACS+ Programme, one of the UK’s largest integrated diagnostic initiatives.
Dr Anton Collins, consultant radiologist and SRO of the NIPACS+ Programme, said: “We’ve closely studied how our ED clinicians have benefitted from this innovative use of AI. This has helped to increase accuracy in the emergency department to a similar level seen in radiology. The result: fewer missed fractures, improved clinical decisions, enhanced care, and fewer patients being called back. As we expand the tool across all Trusts, we are supporting staff in delivering the right diagnosis for patients first time. This is not replacing radiologists or radiographers; it is an important way to help busy healthcare teams deliver efficient and effective care.”
NIPACS+ has been providing diagnosticians and clinical teams with a single point of access for medical images across multiple disciplines, and has been modernising how radiology, pathology, and other diagnostic services within HSC can collaborate and better harness imaging technology for patient care.
Joanne Allison, BSO NIPACS+ Programme Manager and co-chair of the Regional Medical Imaging Board AI subgroup said: “Deploying a regionalised AI application is another major milestone for the NIPACS+ Programme, one we are keen to build on. The RMIB AI subgroup is currently identifying need and assessing potential benefits for other medical imaging-related algorithms which will also be deployed through NIPACS+, and our enterprise imaging supplier Sectra.”
Further uses for AI already being explored could aid in areas including chest x-rays and digital pathology, where potential exists to help clinicians detect diseases and cancers sooner. Once assessed, NIPACS+ will be able to achieve similarly rapid deployment. Sectra Amplifier Services allowed Northern Ireland to deploy at pace with BoneView, with due diligence on AI tools available in the service already complete. Sectra, which is also Northern Ireland’s enterprise imaging solution provider, managed contractual, integration, and technical components of the deployment, allowing the AI to scale as needed, and releasing Trusts to focus on assessing clinical merits and effectiveness before it is used in supporting patient care.
The implementation of BoneView is now anticipated to have widespread benefits – and is expected to help clinical teams in the examination of more than 300,000 bone x-rays a year.
Health Minister Mike Nesbitt, said: “This technology is already making a difference to how efficiently and effectively our emergency departments and minor injury unit clinicians can treat patients. With missed fracture rates decreasing significantly, the project is delivering real-time benefits to patients. I’m excited about the potential this project has to improve and streamline workflows, enhance diagnostics and most importantly, improve patient care.”
Jane Rendall, UK and Ireland managing director for Sectra, said: “Northern Ireland is a genuine pioneer in integrated diagnostics at-scale. NIPACS+ is a global exemplar in bringing together diagnostic images as an enabler for transforming how services can work together. It remains a privilege to continue to support the programme, one which I know personally is inspiring and informing how diagnostic services in other parts of the UK can modernise.”
