King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital participated in the Artificial Intelligence World Summit at King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center in Riyadh with a joint project with “SDAIA” represented by the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence, the Ministry of Health represented by the Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence, the Saudi Company for Artificial Intelligence (SCAI), and Leen Company.

This is the first project at the national level through developing an imaging device for early diagnosis of complications of diabetes on the retina using artificial intelligence algorithms without human intervention.

Dr Abdulaziz Al Rajhi, KKESH CEO, explained this project comes as a part of contributing to AI technologies to provide creative solutions to increase the efficiency of providing medical care for patients by using the top advanced technologies in the field of eyes in KSA.

Dr. Al Rajhi pointed out that the project contains modern and high technology devices to keep up with the knowledge shift in artificial intelligence technology to apply them in patient service and provide early diagnosis of cases. The project contains a camera that takes a picture of the retina through artificial intelligence algorithms to determine if the patient has diabetes complications. In the next phase of the project, complications will be diagnosed and categorized, then each patient will be referred to the specialized physician.

He indicated that this service does not require to be in hospitals and healthcare centres, but it can be provided in commercial centres through allocating a room and placing the device then the patient can use it with no need for an appointment. The fundus of the eye will be photographed and the diagnosis will be provided in a few minutes, saving the patient time and money. Besides, it will reduce the need for healthcare cadres who are basically limited

Dr Adi Al Owaifeer, the consultant ophthalmologist and medical supervisor of the project, confirmed that the creative tool for detecting diabetic retinopathy has been fully developed locally by national competencies.