Empowering General Practitioners in Malaysia with AI
The Qualitas Medical Group is a chain of integrated general practice (GP) clinics, dental clinics, medical imaging centers, and ambulatory care management centers that play an integral role in Malaysia’s health system. They actively contribute to the country’s urban and sub-urban healthcare needs. Qualitas Medical Group recently received two Healthcare Asia Awards and was appreciated for their Covid-19 management efforts.??
Their chain of 115 clinics supports thousands of local & migrant workers and students among others, with health check-ups mandated by their respective employers or educational institutions. Annually, more than 1 million X-rays are conducted across the group. With these high volumes, ensuring low wait times for patients while maintaining high-quality reads are among the key objectives of the clinics.?
In early 2020, Qualitas partnered with Qure.ai's, facilitated by AstraZeneca and Lung Cancer Network Malaysia (LCNM). Our goal was to utilize the existing primary care and imaging infrastructure to identify early signs of lung cancer. The journey over the last year has been enriching for both organizations as we ensured consistent operations while braving two waves of pandemics.?
Qure’s AI-powered Chest X-ray tool, qXR has been supporting 15 General physicians across 10 clinics in different regions of Malaysia in identifying critical findings and lung nodules on ~6000 individuals. Despite staff shortages during the pandemic and tough movement control rules, the reporting standards have improved from an average of 2 days to the same day since the implementation of qXR.?
The radiographers staffing these clinics made active efforts to engage with the novel technology. We saw a 2000% rise in volumes since May when we first went live with these clinics, with a 440% surge in December alone, compared to the volumes processed in May. With a growing number of accurate, rapid turnarounds through AI, the GPs are increasingly turning to the technology for reviewing their findings before releasing the reports. This has reduced their dependency on radiologists to make accurate decisions, empowering them to do so instead.?
In parallel, LCNM has worked closely with this group of physicians to educate them about the need for appropriate referral for cases with lung nodules, a possible first sign of lung malignancy. While more than 95% of these nodules may have no clinical significance, keeping them in the loop of appropriate referrals can be potentially lifesaving if they go on to become malignant. The groups have had immense learning in terms of the non-medical factors that impact an early diagnosis of cancer. Aspects such as awareness about the need for active referral, identifying high-risk cases beyond typical risk factors, keeping patients on the care pathways in the absence of glaring symptoms, and navigating through fear psychology around the disease are among some of these learnings. LCNM is taking active efforts to plan long-term initiatives to overcome these challenges.?
Partnerships like these keep us excited about the possibilities that AI tools can have in impacting clinical decision-making and access to high-quality care across the globe. To know more about our work with Qualitas, reach out to us at [email protected]