Showcase of Oxford’s leading role in AI healthcare revolution

Oxford's cutting-edge work in AI techniques that promise to transform healthcare has been showcased on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Speaking to the programme ahead of a speech by health secretary Matt Hancock on innovation in the NHS, Oxford's Professor Sir John Bell said new technologies and the use of data were 'a real imperative' for the health service and would help 'relieve pressure on clinicians, make hospitals safer, and manage care pathways more effectively'. Featured during the segment was the Oxford-developed GDm-health software application , which allows pregnant women suffering from gestational diabetes to monitor their blood sugar levels and share that information in real-time with a team at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Consultant obstetric physician Dr Lucy Mackillop, of the John Radcliffe Hospital and Oxford's Nuffield Department of Women's and Reproductive Health , said the application allowed doctors to provide more personalised and responsive care. Professor Lionel Tarassenko, Head of the Department of Engineering Science at Oxford, who helped develop the application, added: 'We talk about extracting a signal from the noise. There are huge amounts of data created about patients - megabytes if not gigabytes - every day, and then they come into hospital and you get more data, such as prescriptions and vital signs including blood pressure, pulse rate and oxygen levels.