Chinese Hospitals Deploy AI to Help Diagnose Covid-19

Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in Wuhan, China, is at the heart of the outbreak of Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that has shut down cities in China, South Korea, Iran, and Italy. That's forced the hospital to become a testbed for how quickly a modern medical center can adapt to a new infectious disease epidemic. One experiment is underway in Zhongnan's radiology department, where staff are using artificial intelligence software to detect visual signs of the pneumonia associated with Covid-19 on lung CT scan images. Haibo Xu, professor and chair of radiology at Zhongnan Hospital, says the software helps overworked staff screen patients and prioritize those most likely to have Covid-19 for further examination and testing. He emailed WIRED an audio file of himself answering a reporter's questions about the project and answered other questions by email.