Semantix and Oswaldo Cruz German Hospital develop  solution  that  accelerates diagnosis of COVID-19

Project that uses artificial intelligence has funding  from  the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation



Semantix, a national specialist in Big Data solutions, artificial intelligence (IA) and Internet das Coisas (IoT), developed, in partnership with the Center for Innovation and Health Education of the German Hospital Oswaldo Cruz and funding of FINEP-MCTI (Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation), a tool to support the diagnosis of COVID-19 with the use of artificial intelligence, in amore assertive and rapid way, through evidence that suggests pulmonary infections in the ct images of patients.

Computed tomography (CT) is a certified alternative to PCR (abbreviation for chain reaction polymerase,in Portuguese, polymerase chain reaction) for the diagnosis of COVID-19,  and PCR may take up to three days to indicate the presence of coronavirus. In the scenario of high occupancy of intensive care units and hospital beds, the use of CT with artificial intelligence algorithms can accelerate the screening of patientsand, consequently, in the optimization of resources, including radiologists themselves.

The identification is based on the diagnosis of images by artificial intelligence trained from the knowledge of a medical team and radiology specialists of the German Hospital Oswaldo Cruz. The solution is able to point out whether the infection is caused by COVID-19, or other viral or bacterial contaminations

With the technology it is also possible to measure the evolution of the degree of pulmonary involvement, bringing greater precision and facilitating the referral to the most appropriate treatment in each case. Currently this percentage is calculated by the saturation of oxygen in the blood and changes in lung auscultation, a method that may be inaccurate.

"The solution came about to help the country fight coronavirus and save lives. We are spreading to otherhospitals, in     resource-poor regions, the union between the knowledge of the specialists of the Oswaldo Cruz German Hospital with our artificial intelligence and the cloud data platform, Semantix Data Platform (SDP)," explains Leonardo Santos, CEO of Semantix.

"It only takes internet access, tomography equipment and an exam operation technician, because our algorithms do all the analysis," adds Rodolfo Uchida, data science manager at Semantix and leader of the initiative.

The Executive Director of Innovation, Research and Education of the German Hospital Oswaldo Cruz, Kenneth Almeida , explains that the use of Artificial Intelligence applied to diagnosis is one of the strategies adopted by the German Hospital Oswaldo Cruz through its Center for Innovation and Health Education. "The speed and accuracy of this type of tool promotes the best care for the patient. In this sense, having the expertise of Semantix brings the state of the art in technology and innovation as a focus on safety and quality of service",says the executive.

The success of the project does not occur at random. In March 2020, still at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the State of São Paulo, like the rest of the country, had no visibility into the number of cases, deaths and turnover of available beds. Faced with this challenge, Semantixresponds to a request from the São Paulo State Health Department for the development of a data solution for covid-19monitoring anddevelops,in twoweeks, through collective effort between the Semantix and Health Secretariat teams, the COVID-19 Census platform. Data platform and epidemiological management, connecting hospitals and laboratories in the state to an analytical environment.

This system was given to the Government of the State of São Paulo and today is used to perform the measurement of the numbers of hospitals in the state, referring to patients in outpatient or ICU and deaths due to coronavirus. From this experience, the company gained authority in dealing with the evaluation of data on coronavirus, which motivated it to create initiatives such as the COVID-19 detection algorithm through images.

About Semantix

Founded in 2010, Semantix is a Brazilian company reference in Latin America in Big Data, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence, which operates throughout Latin America and the United States through the offices of São Paulo (headquarters), Miami, Mexico City and Bogotá. Through the Semantix Data Platform - data technology platform, multi-cloud, API-first - offers infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and data-as-a-service platform (PaaS). To offer in an integrated way the best package of solutions to its customers, Semantix has more than 60 technological alliances with leading technology companies and with a collaborative framework of more than 400 certified technical employees, 85% of which are certified in technologies that are market references (Cloudera, Elastic, Amazon AWS, Microsoft and Google).

About the German Hospital Oswaldo Cruz

Founded in 1897 by a group of German-speaking immigrants, The German Hospital Oswaldo Cruz is one of the largest hospital centers in Latin America. With 123 years of experience, it is a reference in services of high complexity and emphasis in Oncology and Digestive Tract. In order for patients to have access to the highest standards of quality and safety in care, certified by the certification of the Joint Commission International (JCI) – the world's leading health accreditation agency – the Hospital has a renowned clinical staff, composed of more than 4,000 active registered physicians, and one of the most qualified assistance in the country. Its total installed capacity is 805 beds, 582 of them in private health and 223 in the public sphere. Since 2008, it has also been working in the public area as one of the six hospitals of excellence of the Support Program for the Institutional Development of the Unified Health System (Proadi-SUS) of the Ministry of Health.

Oswaldo Cruz German Hospital - https://www.hospitaloswaldocruz.org.br/