Ping An launches artificial intelligence assisted clinical decision support system for gastroesophageal cancers

HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, Dec. 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An" or the "Group", HKEX: 02318; SSE: 601318) announced the launch of the artificial intelligence (AI) assisted clinical decision support system (CDSS), AskBob Cancer for Gastroesophageal Cancers, developed by Ping An, National University Hospital, Singapore (NUH) and National University Cancer Institute of Singapore (NCIS).

The launch took place at the Singapore Healthcare AI Expo 2020 which is organized by National University of Singapore, National University Health System and MIT Critical Data.

AskBob Doctor is an innovative breakthrough in the field of AI tumor management. Dr. Guotong Xie, Chief Healthcare Scientist of Ping An and Prof. Jimmy So, Head and Senior Consultant, Division of Surgical Oncology, NCIS, gave a live demonstration of the AskBob Cancer system to showcase how it helps oncologists make more accurate and efficient decisions in cancer management.

Multidisciplinary oncology board is the gold standard for oncology management decision making. However, many hospitals lack this kind on oncology board. On the other hand, oncologists need to take around 5 hours per week to catch up with the latest research progress. AskBob Cancer is based on knowledge graph and natural language processing (NLP) technologies. By analyzing high-quality literatures such as global clinical guidelines, meta analysis and randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the system can provide doctors with the best treatment recommendation based on the latest clinical evidence given a tumor patient's disease stage and condition. It automatically identifies the relevant literatures for the treatment plan as evidence support for doctors' quick understanding. The system also uses machine learning technology to provide customized recommendations based on the clinical practice preferences of different institutions.

Prof. So said that in AskBob Cancer was validated with 100 retrospective cases at NUH. The concordance rate between the AskBob cancer and the multidisciplinary oncology board is 96%. NUH is about to launch a multi-center clinical validation of the system by recruiting 1000 patients from worldwide.

AskBob Doctor is an intelligent digital platform developed by Ping An to provide precise clinical decision support and communications. This platform is based on five databases -- for diseases, medical products, prescription medications, medical resources and personal health – and includes user profiles to improve self-learning for healthcare service providers and enhance the quality and efficiency of disease management. AskBob Doctor's services include AI clinical decision support, drug inquiry, literature inquiry and translation, an online forum, online courses, and news.

AskBob Doctor covers more than 15,000 diseases overall, and can diagnose 85 common diseases with 90% accuracy. It has been used by 20,000 medical institutions in about 30 provincial-level administrative regions in China, serving more than 450,000 doctors.