One significant challenge that must be overcome to realize smart hospital and IoMT deployments based on dynamic EMRs is medical imaging. Medical imaging is the largest and fastest-growing data source in the healthcare industry, accounting for 90% of all healthcare data.

However, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as an instrument that medical device technology providers are using to help smart hospitals overcome the challenges of medical imaging. Sophisticated AI algorithms can analyze imaging records instantaneously to identify cancerous tissue, bone deficiencies, and other physical abnormalities before they are rendered on full-HD screens inside patient rooms and operating rooms. If connected to the IoMT, this information can also be added to EMRs that are streamed between hospital departments to save time, reduce costs, and improve the efficiency of care (Figure 1).

Figure 1. AI-enabled medical imaging can produce visual representations of patient conditions, which in turn can be added to dynamic electronic medical records.

But advanced, AI-powered imaging applications require a suite of enabling technologies. First and foremost, processors equipped with HD graphics features and hardware-accelerated video encoding/decoding are a must. In a hospital setting, medical panel PC’s which connect high-end medical equipment such as a next generation AI-powered endoscopy system, must meet the following conditions in order to be integrated into the hospital system.

System Features:

• Medical grade with anti-microbial surface is a must
• High performance computing power
• Quick booting time
• Expansion PCI-E slot for AI module or video capture card
• Battery pack 20-50 minutes
• USB3.1 gen 2 or higher 
• 2-4 x COM & 4-6 x USB slots
• PCAP touch and high resolution panel quality
• Powerful graphic card integration 

Wincomm is a leading manufacturer of medical touch panel PCs, embedded box PCs, and software products that empower AIoMT facilities. The newest AI-Powered Medical Panel PC WMP-K series comes with the Intel 9th generation Coffee Lake platform CPU, size ranging from 19 inch to 24 inch, it has designed with the highest utilization computing performance on its panel size, compare to average of medical grade panel PC industry. Continuously with strong hardware integration core competence, WMP-K series wins the optimization computing power on the same panel size and CPU platform, moreover, it is passed the latest medical certification with the best expansion flexibility, which is benefited from Wincomm highly integration with its own design capability. For example, Wincomm WMP K series is designed with an independent GTX-1060 graphic cards, and a PCI-E [x4] expansion slot, supporting Intel® Movidius™ AI module, test proof, and this design makes it powerful to support Medical AI on most imaging applications. With the safety design concept, WMP-24K/22K/19K can also be equipped with a 4KV Isolation COM / LAN / USB module, to avoid expansive equipment damage from signal and voltage feedback loops and ensure patients safety.

Currently, WMP-19K, was used in more and more endoscopic systems at hospitals from JP to global, and was passed local FDA approval notice together with Wincomm partners (Fig 2). The WMP-K series is designed to suit for AI-equipped endoscopic system at versatile application, such as colorectal diagnostic, bronchoscopy detection, and lung vision investigation. In addition, it has USB3.1 gen 4 slots, which transfer speed is up to 10Gbps, to conveniently connect other medical devices. The anti-microbial (MRSA) P-cap touch with frozen screen hot key design allows users to easily operate and easily clean the unit. Compared to SATA interface HDD or SSD, WMP-K series is upgraded its driving disk to M.2 NVMe with PCIe 3.0 x4 interface, which resulted in the speed significantly.

Fig 2. Leveraging the high computing power with an independent GTX-1060 graphic card, WMP-19K was successfully used in colorectal endoscopic diagnostic at JP hospitals.