The Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba and Israel Aerospace Industries have set up a joint innovation center to convert defense technologies into new medical technologies.
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IAI's subsidiary, Elta, said it will work with the center to create a technological greenhouse for growing new ideas for medical equipment. The forum links hospital doctors with IAI engineers for the joint examination of technologies that can act as breakthrough new solutions. A joint steering committee will choose the final projects for further development.
The idea has its roots in the height of the pandemic, when the IAI and the Defense Ministry set up a production line for mechanical ventilators, Israel Lupa, executive vice president at Elta, said.
IAI-Elta developed multiple technologies to assist the medical system at the time, he said, including a cockpit control system that allows for data on ventilated COVID-19 patients to be presented in a centralized manner and provide comprehensive information on a patient's condition. IAI's artificial intelligence capabilities were used to issue alerts on deterioration in the conditions of patients, enabling medical staff to allot their attention and resources to patients in a timely manner.
"This started during the pandemic. As a company, we decided to help hospitals where we could, to reduce the stress on the medical system," Lupa recalled. "We found ourselves involved with many hospitals, from north to south, trying to help each one in line with their requirements."
"In this context, one of the hospitals we worked with was the Soroka [University Medical] Center," said Lupa. "At first, we helped it run isolation wards using a software bot that can engage in dialogue with the isolated person … This helped alleviate the load on the system. Many at that time were hospitalized in isolation, and they had many questions for medical staff. Together with Microsoft, we deployed a relatively simple app to take the pressure off personnel. It offered automatic answers to those questions."
Next came the cockpit coronavirus management system, which enabled medical staff to monitor patients from outside their treatment rooms. This meant the doctors and nurses did not have to put on full protective gear and sterilize themselves so many times each day.
"The next stage was adding AI to identify patients' situations and to sound alerts when patients required attention," Lupa said.
During those difficult months, IAI forged a close connection with doctors at the hospital, and both sides realized the incredible potential for cooperation, according to Lupa.
"We have many technologies that have the potential for medical applications. But we don't really understand the medical field, and this is where the connection with hospitals and doctors comes in," he said.
Hospital department managers and IAI personnel both identified ways for IAI's AI, big data analysis, signals technology, and sensor processing to work in the medical world.
According to Lupa, "an ultrasound is no different from sonars and radars. Therefore, our technology is highly suitable for analyzing these signals. There's also a need to provide the equipment with cyber defense. We said, 'Let's see how we can address their needs with our technology.'"
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Now, as the collaboration advances, technical and medical teams meet regularly, with IAI staff learning about the various hospital departments, as well as their capabilities and needs. Once a need is identified, a viability analysis is conducted that can result in a product, Lupa said. With the hospitals' help, the product concept is then sent to start-up companies for development.
Initial meetings have led to many potential ideas, Lupa said, noting one initial brainstorming session led to 20 different product ideas the IAI plans to filter down to two or three "big ideas."
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
