Telefónica and Harrison.ai Team Up on Medical X-Ray AI

Telefónica, through its business unit Telefónica Tech, has partnered with global healthcare technology firm Harrison.ai to offer an AI diagnostics solution to regional health services across Spain.

The clinical tool supports healthcare professionals by analysing chest X-rays to automatically identify up to 124 clinical findings, such as pulmonary nodules, which facilitates lung cancer screening. This will help medical practitioners identify critical conditions at an early stage.

Rigorous medical standards

To ensure high clinical standards and reliability, the underlying AI algorithm was trained using data from more than 780,000 chest X-ray studies.

At least three qualified radiologists independently labelled each study during the development process.

The algorithm holds a CE IIb medical device certification, the highest level of assurance for diagnostic support. It is therefore permitted for use when treating potentially lethal health issues and is compliant with the relevant European Union legislation governing safety, efficacy and quality.

Integration and local support

Telefónica’s own AI and data experts can integrate the AI system directly into existing healthcare systems and infrastructures.

This tailored approach ensures the technology aligns with the exact technical and clinical requirements of Spain's varied regional health networks.

Alongside deployment, Telefónica provides managed maintenance and ongoing technical support.

“The incorporation of artificial intelligence into radiology represents a significant step towards more effective and efficient healthcare models, in which technology becomes an ally of healthcare professionals to deliver faster, more accurate and personalised care”, says Carlos Martínez, Head of Data and AI at Telefónica Tech.

“With this new solution, which we are already offering to several regional health services, we are continuing to expand the services we offer our clients and making progress towards our aim of becoming the best gateway for citizens, businesses and public administrations to access digital technologies.”

Streamlining clinical workflows

By streamlining diagnostic workflows and reducing clinical response times, the technology helps medical professionals improve patient care.

“We are proud to partner with Telefónica Tech to bring clinically validated and scalable AI to healthcare professionals across Spain”, says Dr Aengus Tran, CEO and co-founder of Harrison.ai.

“Telefónica’s reach in Spain gives us the opportunity to do what we set out to do: reduce the gap in healthcare capacity.

“Our aim is simple: to help clinicians detect diseases such as lung cancer at an earlier stage, prioritise the most urgent cases and ensure that no findings go unnoticed.”

While the diagnostic system provides a rapid second opinion, medical staff retain the ultimate authority on patient diagnoses and treatment pathways.

Clinicians working within accident and emergency departments or primary care units can access these AI-generated insights via a standard web browser.

The software serves as an initial filter to limit unnecessary specialist referrals. It also integrates into radiologists' patient lists and systems, so they can customise categorisation by urgency and prioritise the most time-critical cases.

The Right Approach

“This aligns with some other (mostly Asian) telcos that are pursuing ‘AI Factory’ strategies more geared towards vertical AI solutions, either for B2B or B2C sectors,” says Dean Bubley, Founder and Director of Disruptive Analysis, in a LinkedIn post about the announcement.

He adds that the fact that the solution integrates into existing healthcare systems, “is exactly the right approach".

"No enterprise is going to listen to a telco arriving on its doorstep and suggesting a complete re-architecting of its IT (and especially AI) portfolio around network-based compute," Dean elaborates. 

“That doesn't mean that some workloads, in some places, couldn't also benefit from more connectivity. I'm sure that shifting big X-ray images and data around will indirectly drive network upgrades in some places as well.

“But the ‘telco to techco’ story here is about a telco selling healthcare diagnostic AI solutions, not about trying to pitch it as a network add-on.”