Technology powerhouse Microsoft has deployed an AI-powered solution potentially shielding hospital staff from COVID-19 infections. The solution leverages Microsoft Azure, Azure Cognitive Services, Power BI, IoT Edge and Azure Bot Service.
Microsoft started working on the AI and IoT solution in early February and developed the product in 2 weeks – well before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic.
Here’s how the system works:
- The “2-in-1” device uses a camera that continuously scans people as they enter the hospital lobby.
- Using Microsoft’s technologies, the device automatically determines whether the visitors are wearing masks and have correct body temperatures.
- Immediately alerts first-line staff when problems are detected so they can stop infected individuals. The notifications are delivered through Azure Bot Service.
Within two weeks, we developed the solution on Microsoft Azure and – together with local Internet of Things (IoT) partners – were able to launch the 2-in-1 device
Daniel Li, Microsoft Taiwan Azure Business Group Lead
It empowers an organization’s IT staff to build modules around their proprietary databases quickly and also to deploy trained AI models to an IoT Edge module for real-time image analysis via Power BI.
Microsoft is not the only technology leader working towards developing hospital technology to fight COVID. Other technology leaders and IT services providers are working towards developing solutions to combat COVID. As they say, it takes a village!
We can expect institutions outside Taiwan would want to deploy similar technology systems reducing the workload of support staff, particularly at hospitals.
More to come
