October 2020 - Cogniphi

The global pandemic has forced us to rethink our existing healthcare system and has created a need to harness advances in technology. Vision-enabled Artificial Intelligence (AI) that combines Computer Vision and Machine Learning (ML) has the proven technologies and potential to improve patient care and hospital efficiencies.

With increasing disease complexities, rising expenses and shortcomings in infrastructure, the healthcare sector needs a panacea for development and growth. By deploying Vision AI, with little addition to existing infrastructure, hospitals and clinics can bring about a system of continuous quality improvement and make healthcare more accessible and inclusive.

The primary areas of Healthcare that are leveraging cutting-edge advances like Vision AI quicker than any other are research, diagnostics, health monitoring, treatment, patient outcomes, Covid protocol monitoring, and facilities management. Here’s a brief look at how.

Research, Diagnostics, Health Monitoring and Treatment

Vision-enabled AI, by developing patterns and correlations in events and data, paves the way for research discoveries that can be life-saving, and also help in error-free and speedy diagnosis that leads to precise and enhanced treatment.

What ML does is it provides, by identifying certain critical patterns and signals that the human mind might miss, an extended arm to the doctor to fine tune his interpretation of available medical data. Further, advanced video analytics, by providing facial analysis and subtle clues about a patient’s behaviour, can often enhance the physician’s own expertise to get an accurate understanding of what a person is actually experiencing, and ensuring that nothing goes unnoticed.

Elevated Patient Satisfaction

AI-driven innovations hold great potential in connecting better with patients by delivering more personalized care and streamlined services. By tracking nursing care to needy patients, patient mobility, tendency to wander from the bed zone, discomfort, injury-prone situations and unusual behavior, Vision AI is already playing a critical remote control role in the vital areas of Patient Safety and Patient Satisfaction. On the advanced technology front it is not far away that Vision-based patterns and insights on patient distress (through face expressions) will help detect instances of Shock or Cardiac so that critical medical attention can reach him in time.

Adherence to Safety protocols

The pandemic is driving changes in hospital safety and this is where the application of Vision AI can be effectively implemented straight away. Compliance monitoring in health centres is now automated and remotely controlled through practical applications that account for the importance of touch-free, contact-less in-patient care.

Vision AI, for instance, helps in tracking glove, gown, and mask utilization, and in analysing utilization of hand sanitizers/hand hygiene. These applications are now available to continuously check patients, hospital staff, vendors and visitors for all contamination protocols to ensure compliance throughout critical areas. It can detect and alert, in real time, patient flow and crowding of waiting rooms and corridors such that compliance protocols are not violated.

Quicker Turn around

At a time when hospital occupancy is at an abnormal high, making room for more patients has also become a top priority. In large facilities operational efficiency jumps multi fold by automating room assignment, tracking room turnover step-by-step, and detecting the true cause of delays.Vision Intelligence can easily be integrated with existing facilities management systems to remotely monitor patient discharge, room cleaning and readiness so as to reduce turn-around time to the minimum and optimize patient flow.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has opened our eyes to the need of better support to our hospitals and essential frontline workers who risk their lives to keep us healthy and safe. As AI is increasingly becoming a part of our daily lives, it is time we harness it to build a smarter and more connected healthcare system that benefits all of us, every day.

Inventory loss, also known as Shrink or Shrinkage, is a BIG problem in the retail industry. Usually caused by shoplifting, employee theft, and neglect, this accounts for 2 to 2.5% of Sales, which means a lot of potential revenue disappearing into thin air. Add the Corona Virus pandemic to that and you have Health safety too in the Problem mix.

Which is why more retailers are developing and implementing strategies for their store and earmarking budgets into in-store security measures to track and deter inventory losses, improve performance and support safety.

Digital technologies are constantly projected as the answer as future-proof options for retailers. One of the most widely discussed technologies is artificial intelligence (AI), and one of the forms of AI most easily applicable to the retail environment is Vision.

How does Vision Intelligence work?
Artificial Intelligence in Vision is an emerging technology that enables retailers to harness the power of video to automate the process of identifying and alerting threats in real time. It attempts to enable computers to “see” and understand, in much the same way as the human eye and mind. Computer algorithms use deep learning models to process visual content received from cameras to identify and classify objects. They further analyse for distinctions such as shapes, colors, borders, spacing, and other patterns to build a profile in such a manner that the software will be use this learned data to find other images that match that profile.

Solutions for Shrinkage already exist
Vision Intelligence is already in use to provide traffic and behavior analytics by using real-time, accurate visitor counts and classification, so retailers can understand customer traffic by knowing a customer’s path through the store, where they spend time, and how much time is spent there. Its deep-learning features also provide insights into behaviors and demographics, which can help in optimising marketing, sales, and rewards programs.

Facial recognition is another form of the technology that has been tested and proven in retail. It is particularly useful in helping retailers detect shoplifters and alert when known bad eggs are in the parking zone or about to enter the stores.

Advanced solutions have also been implemented that detect real-time potential loss of billing caused by BoB (unemptied items at the Bottom of the Basket/Trolley), or “Sweethearting” or “Buddy billing” (neglecting to scan all of a friend or family member’s items) or No billing at self check-out counters. The software can also be taught to identify definitive pattern of habitual shop lifters, like loitering in parking lots, and to recognize actions like putting objects into a pocket or a handbag.

Pandemic Challenge
Existing Computer vision technology can be easily adapted to address challenges caused by the Covid pandemic, such as temperature screening, mask compliance, and social distancing. Thermal imaging, originally intended to detect intense heat for early indication of fire, can be used to screen temperature and detect elevated body temperature of individuals entering a facility. Mask detection used to identify a person as a robbery threat can be adapted to detect a face mask for health compliance. Facial recognition that helps to determine unique customer counts can also now allow retailers to stay within social distancing guidelines.

Investing small

Vision AI has the great advantage of being a flexible technology. Data with a visual context already exists. It is up to you to do what you want with it. Investing in solutions on a small scale to begin with makes absolute sense. That won’t prevent you from being able to expand its use seamlessly in the future, meaning it is future-proof. You can adopt a particular solution to integrate with your retail loss prevention method in any way that you think fit.

Month: October 2020

Ushering in a new era of Healthcare with Vision AI

A working technology for Loss Prevention in Retail