An artificial intelligence smartphone application that can help evaluate and track patients’ postoperative wound recovery was unveiled by researchers and physicians from National Taiwan University and NTU Hospital March 13 in Taipei City.
 
AI-SWAS, or Surgical Wounds Assessment System, allows doctors to remotely access images taken by patients on their phones to gauge post-op healing. It can also help physicians check the pictures for evidence of swelling, infection and skin necrosis, and has an accuracy rate of 90 percent, according to the joint NTU, NTUH development team.
 
Other features of the app include automatic correction of smartphone images in areas such as brightness and color saturation to reduce appraisal errors, as well as regular updating of the wound database to improve AI evaluations.
 
Dr. Tai Hao-chih, chief of the NTUH plastic surgery division, said that physicians participating in the three-year R&D project used 131 images from 46 patients to develop the baseline for AI wound assessment.
 
By facilitating regular updates on postop recovery, the app can offer patients peace of mind and free up appointment time for doctors, Tai added.
 
The app has been designed for Android devices, with the iOS version still under development, the R&D team said. (HC-E)