The Institution of Engineers (India) (IEI), Telangana State Centre was organized World Telecommunication and Information Society Day-2020 on Sunday through “Zoom Cloud Meeting APP”. The Speaker Dr K M M Rao, Deputy Director (Retd.) ISRO, Adjunct Faculty, BITS-PILANI. The topic is “Image Processing for Healthcare and Challenges-Advances in Communications, High Speed Computers, Intelligent Software”.
Dr.Rao, presented his power point presentation Three major forces influencing the pattern of healthcare delivery: New technologies lead to more patient-friendly treatment methods, new treatment methods result in minimally invasive procedures, with less hospitalization and faster recovery, social factors include earlier return to work, containment of direct and indirect costs and as a consequence, an increased demand for the new treatment methods. The advances in treatment method and surgeries are taking place in healthcare, with the advancement of imaging systems, image processing software, artificial intelligence techniques, robotics, high speed and easy availability of computing systems, large capacity storage devices, wide spread high speed internet and Wi-Fi facilities, lasers etc., Image processing helps in easy diagnosis of diseases, non-invasive surgeries, remote surgeries, autonomous hospital facilities and many more activities for healthcare. The photon sensing role of the eye allows optical access to the retina over a wide band of wavelengths. In view of this natural phenomena, Image processing and hyper-spectral or multi-spectral imaging techniques, greatly help diagnosing various eye diseases – like Glaucoma, Age related Macular Degeneration (AMD), Diabetic Retinopathy etc.,
Rao said another area of image processing in healthcare is early detection of breast cancer. Breast cancer cases have been raising globally from last few decades. Early stage detection of breast cancer is very important to decrease the mortality rate. Major challenges in medical imaging and processing are 1) combining different sources of information, viz., CT (computed Tomography), PET (positron emission tomography), SPECT (single Photon Emission computed Topography), MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and 2)developing models with the knowledge of human anatomy and incorporating into imaging systems, 3)comparison of multi date images and pathology data of a patient to assess treatment effectiveness and monitoring the progress using data mining techniques. Image guided radiation and image guided surgery are key areas of research in medical image processing. Key hole surgery and robotic surgery are taking important role in healthcare, giving advantage to patients for faster recovery and early return to work. The Internet of medical things (IoMT) is another application for medical and health related purposes, data collection and analysis for research, and patient monitoring.
The IoMT has been referenced as “Smart Healthcare”, as the technology for creating a digitized healthcare system, connecting available medical resources and healthcare services. IoT devices can be used to enable remote health monitoring and emergency notification systems. These health monitoring devices can range from blood pressure and heart rate monitors to advanced devices capable of monitoring specialized implants, such as pacemakers, Fitbit electronic wristbands, etc., Further, challenges in healthcare are meeting the healthcare needs of large percentage of people, who stay in rural and semi urban areas in developing countries. They do not have access to modern healthcare facilities and they are expensive for most of the population in India and other developing countries. They have to travel long distances for treatment in super specialty hospitals and they have to wait long time to access the advanced healthcare facilities. Low cost instrumentation with internet and mobile enabled network connectivity will help patients in rural and semi urban areas to access well equipped and sophisticated hospitals in the cities.