Google’s new AI dermatology assistant dubbed, the Google dermatology assist tool helps patients determine skin conditions.
The recently unveiled tool adopts artificial intelligence to identify skin, hair, and nail conditions. The technology uses images uploaded by patients to spot one of the aforesaid conditions.
The Google dermatology assist tool was tested at the Google IO, which is the company’s annual developer conference. The tech giant is planning to launch it later this year, BBC reported.
Google dermatology assist tool usability
The Google AI dermatology assistant consists of CE mark, which can be used as a medical tool in Europe. According to a cancer expert, AI advances could come in handy for making more suitable treatments for patients.
The Google dermatology assist tool will be able to identify 288 skin conditions. Although it is not recommended to use it as a replacement for medical diagnosis and treatment.
It took three years to develop the tool. It has been trained on data comprising 65,000 images of diagnosed conditions and several images of marks people were concerned about. Aside from uploading images, users need to answer a set of questions online.
How Google dermatology assist tool works
The Google dermatology assist tool is a web-based application that helps patients to determine what might be going with their skin using AI. After launching the tool, all you need to do is to use your phone’s camera and take three images of the skin, hair, or nail from different angles.
The tool questions users related to their skin type and details regarding it. For instance, how long they have had the issue and other symptoms but your answers help the tool to narrow down the possibilities.
After analyzing this information, the AI model gives you a list of possible matching conditions and the application shows dermatologist-reviewed information for each matching condition. The tool will also display FAQs that will help users to learn without wasting time in asking repetitive questions.
While Google doesn’t focus on providing professional advice, it does encourage users to learn more authoritative information. The users will be able to learn about the potential conditions and also easily send their own data to their providers.
As a result, patients will be able to make more informed decisions regarding their next step. Google stated that there are about 10 billion searches every year because of issues related to skin, hair, and nail.
The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) hasn’t yet approved the Google dermatology assist tool for use in the United States. The FDA recently approved a similar machine-learning model.