Lately, there has been increasing discussion about artificial intelligence, how it can revolutionise our lives, and what the future holds… even though the only innovation for the end user seems to be a new feature added to various products solely to increase sales.

Fortunately, there are also companies on the market such as Red Hat, a leader in the field of reliable open source solutions, which, despite some ethical stumbles since it was acquired by IBM, always strives to innovate and find real applications for new technologies.

In this article, I will discuss the Red Hat OpenShift platform, designed to create and manage large-scale applications, and how it has been used by Boston Children’s Hospital to optimise the quality and interpretation of radiological images.

It may seem like a minor improvement, but to understand the significance of this innovation, consider that all data analysis and measurements were previously carried out entirely by hand and outside the hospital workflow, resulting in an unacceptable “waste” of time in a sector where even a minute can tip the balance between life and death.

On a more technical note, the application has the potential to automatically examine thousands of X-rays and report discrepancies and possible crucial clues to radiologists, who can then directly analyse the images considered most important.

All this is possible thanks to the continuous updating of public digital archives (including the Massachusetts Open Cloud), which serve as essential data sources for the entire healthcare infrastructure.

The unique feature of this innovation is that it is constantly evolving thanks to the extensive research carried out by the public health sector, thus fully embracing the open source philosophy!

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