On April 30, at the emergency entrance of Xi'an International Medical Center Hospital, an infrared thermal imaging camera was conducting contactless temperature measurement for people entering and exiting.
At the emergency entrance of Xi'an International Medical Center Hospital, an infrared thermal imaging camera stands quietly in the corner. People passing by it have unknowingly passed the body temperature test. Once a patient with fever is found, it will immediately issue an alarm. Since early February, as three sets of infrared intelligent remote body temperature monitoring systems have "arrived" to Xi'an International Medical Center Hospital, the hospital has added three pairs of special "eyes".
This is the epitome of smart medical devices helping epidemic prevention and control. This epidemic is promoting the development of the domestic public health system and becoming a catalyst and accelerator for the long-term development of the medical device industry. Medical device companies are using technological and digital innovation to give their strengths to promote medical services to become smarter and more accurate, thereby protecting people's health.
As some industry insiders have said, with the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, we need such medical devices wrapped with elements such as "contactless","intelligence" and "digital automation" more than ever. Similarly, they will have great potential in assisting the intelligent management of the public health system and create strong market demand.
1 the epidemic situation highlights the shortage of intelligent medical devices
On the morning of March 9, the Information Office of the Shaanxi Provincial Government held a press conference on the prevention and control of the epidemic situation of COVID-19 in Shaanxi Province. It was mentioned at the meeting that since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, our province has actively made use of the technological accumulation and leading advantages in the fields of artificial intelligence, thermal imaging, face recognition, robots, etc. Aiming at the prevention and control of the epidemic, we have actively developed products such as human temperature screening infrared thermal cameras, non-contact medical stethoscopes, epidemic prevention patrol robots, unmanned eliminate virus inspection robots, epidemic prevention eliminate virus service drones, and so on, and have successively built safety barriers for the flow and gathering of people brought about by the resumption of work and production in railway stations, bus stations, airports, hospitals and other densely populated places in many provinces.
Since the outbreak, a series of products such as body temperature screening inspection robots and unmanned disinfection inspection robots developed by the Mei Xuesong team of Xi'an Jiaotong University have been applied in the Third People's Hospital of Hubei Province and other environments.
Coincidentally, in early February, the Zall Public Welfare Foundation donated six sets of infrared intelligent remote temperature detection systems, including three in Xi'an International Medical Center Hospital, two in International Medical Hospital, and one in International Medical Shangluo Hospital. Pedestrians pass quickly within 8 meters of infrared lens detection. The infrared intelligent remote temperature detection system can display the thermal image of the human body and the highest body surface temperature in only 1 second, and the operator can obtain accurate data with a resolution of 0.05 degrees Celsius. It solves the problem that the traditional temperature measurement requires close contact, and can measure pedestrian temperature effectively, quickly and non-contact, not only avoiding personnel gathering and cross-infection. It has also greatly reduced the workload of medical workers and effectively built an "intelligent line of defense" for epidemic prevention and control.
The medical device industry involves many fields. After the epidemic, some market segments are experiencing explosive growth, including medical robots with disinfection, protection and other functions. Wearable health monitoring equipment, artificial intelligence assistant diagnosis system and other intelligent medical devices accelerate the popularization and application, change the traditional mode of disease prevention, detection and treatment, and provide new means to improve the quality of health service.
According to the latest research report by professional institutions, nearly 1 million robots will be used in business in 2020, more than half of them are professional service robots, which will generate more than $16 billion in revenue, an increase of 30 per cent over 2019.
2 the domestic substitution of intelligent medical devices is accelerating
With the revision and improvement of industry standards, the domestic medical device industry will be more conducive to the development of standardization, standardization and high quality. After the "big test" of the epidemic, the domestic substitution of the equipment industry has been accelerated.
The development of intelligent medical devices is supported by "hard technology". In early February, the project of "COVID-19 Intelligent Auxiliary diagnosis system" developed by Xi'an Zhiyue Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Intelligent diagnosis Technology), which is located in Xi'an High-tech Zone, passed the acceptance of the project. Wang Bo, head of intelligent diagnosis technology, said that COVID-19 's intelligent auxiliary diagnosis system can complete chest CT screening for a large number of suspected cases in a short time, significantly improve COVID-19 's diagnostic efficiency, greatly relieve the pressure of clinical first-line diagnosis and treatment, so that patients can obtain early accurate diagnosis and timely treatment, and achieve the purpose of improving patient prognosis and reducing mortality.
In mid-February, the research and development team of Xi'an University of Electronic Science and Technology and imaging doctors in the first line of anti-epidemic in the second affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University carried out scientific research on the basis of previous medical image processing research through remote network meetings, discussed the scheme and design model, and relied on COVID-19 's suspected and confirmed lung CT images of Shanghai Ruijin Hospital and the second affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University. Through a comprehensive analysis of the characteristics of pulmonary CT images of COVID-19 patients, novel coronavirus's early detection and screening model system based on deep learning was designed and developed. Through the hospital outpatient data screening test, the model can reduce the workload of medical staff by nearly 80%, and the recall rate of COVID-19 patients is more than 95%.
The reporter learned from a number of hospitals in Xi'an: at present, including infrared intelligent remote temperature detection system, distribution robots and other intelligent medical equipment have been unveiled on the front line of epidemic prevention. And the domestic proportion of these instruments is gradually increasing.
Industry insiders said that only through the competition between high-quality domestic self-branded products and imported products, the market price of smart medical devices will decline, so that ordinary people can really benefit. If we can make up for the shortcomings of domestic intelligent medical devices, many diseases can be prevented, early diagnosis, early intervention, reasonable treatment, the overall medical costs will be reduced, which will be more conducive to the health of the people.
In April 2019, the State Drug Administration launched the China Drug Regulatory Science Action Plan. In order to speed up the research on the key technologies of artificial intelligence medical device safety supervision, the State Drug Administration has included the research on the safety and effectiveness evaluation of artificial intelligence medical devices into the first batch of scientific key research projects of drug supervision. With people's pursuit of health and the enhancement of protection awareness, the state pays more attention to the medical device industry, coupled with the promotion of supporting policies, domestic substitution is expected to become the main theme of the device industry in the future.
3The market potential of intelligent medical devices is great.
Today, all kinds of intelligent medical robots have only opened the tip of the iceberg in the medical device industry. COVID-19 's epidemic situation brought a "big test" to promote the development of the industry, and many medical device industries are driving into the fast lane of development.
In this epidemic, many medical imaging artificial intelligence companies immediately chose to give up the Spring Festival break, communicate with doctors on the front line, conduct on-site testing, carry out product development and improvement, and actively make their own contributions.
From Huoshen Mountain Hospital in Wuhan to medical institutions at all levels in more than 20 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities across the country, Lianying Medical Technology Group's "Intelligent Sky Eye CT" and "Cloud Platform" and the artificial intelligence COVID-19 intelligent auxiliary analysis system and other technological tools have stood out in this battle against the epidemic. In particular, the demand for the Joint Vision "Intelligent Sky Eye CT" with AI technology and the Joint Vision X-ray equipment equipped with visual exposure technology has increased significantly.
Not only that, overseas markets are also in strong demand. Relevant information shows that Mindray Medical has received demand for anti-epidemic equipment from many countries in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and other regions since early March, and multiple equipment has been sent overseas, including ventilators, monitors and other equipment; Joint Image CT has also entered New York, the "hardest hit" in the United States, to leverage the power of Chinese medical equipment; Shentu, the leader of smart DR, has also sent nearly 100 DRs overseas to help countries fight the epidemic.
my country is the second largest medical device market in the world after the United States, and the medical device industry is an emerging industry that my country focuses on supporting. After the "big test" of the epidemic, the medical device field has attracted new investors. In the future, the demand for smart medical products, emergency protection products, in vitro diagnostic products, etc. will gradually increase. High-end medical devices are expected to become the next hot spot. Development will also gradually solve the problem of insufficient medical resources.
In the next step, in the medical device industry with technology as the core and products as the trump card, whoever can truly solve practical clinical problems efficiently will win the market. Therefore, medical devices must ensure product quality and strictly test all links to win trust and market.