AI Tool Developed by UPMC to Diagnose Ear Infections

The tool is designed to help clinicians identify a common type of ear infection that's often overlooked or misdiagnosed. Clinicians at UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh have developed an AI algorithm that can identify acute otitis media (AOM), one of the most common childhood infections. While some 70% of children have an ear infection before their first birthday, those infections are hard to spot and are often misdiagnosed as fluid buildup. To identify AOM, clinicians need to peer into the eardrum and identify subtle signs of an infection, often a difficult task when dealing with an infant or small child. To help clinicians make a better diagnosis, researchers created an AI tool that can analyze a video of a patient’s eardrum, taken by an otoscope connected to a camera.