Partnership for medical imaging and analytics solution

The combination of powerful Advantech hardware with QUIBIM’s sophisticated software helped this Spanish firm deliver high-performance solutions to the region’s healthcare organisations – accelerating and enhancing clinician decision-making.

QUIBIM originated in the La Fe Health Research Institute, a renowned facility which is part of Valencia’s La Fe Polytechnic and University Hospital. Its founders include a senior radiologist and biomedical engineer.

The company applies Al and advanced computational models to radiological images in order to objectively measure changes and flag abnormalities. In so doing, it significantly reduces workloads for under-pressure radiologists - ensuring they can focus on only the most serious cases.

One of the firm’s most popular offerings, its chest X-Ray classifier, uses Al to provide a score indicating the probability of an abnormality in a patient. It can detect 14 different types of diseases in the chest area of the body, including pneumonia, emphysema, and fibrosis.

According to Angel Alberich Bayarri, CEO and Founder of QUIBIM, its products have already been successfully deployed in more than 70 hospitals worldwide.

The firm quickly leveraged its field expertise to check for abnormalities that may indicate COVID-19, Bayarri says. This not only provided an initial red flag mechanism for radiologists to investigate further, but was also used in ongoing cases to quantify when the disease no longer posed a risk to patients. So far, the algorithm is being used as a cloud service by 40 hospitals - provided by QUIBIM free-of-charge. The firm’s efforts have furthered the European Imaging COVID-19 Al project, an unprecedented effort to automate virus diagnosis via CT scans.

Now QUIBIM wants to build on this success with Advantech’s help.

The partnership combines the best of both worlds: cutting edge Al for radiologists from QUIBIM, with Advantech’s ability to deliver high-performance hardware, software integration, customer-centric design services, embedded systems, automation products, and global logistics support.

“Advantech is a great partner to deploy our solutions with. Working with Advantech allows us to focus on software development without worrying about the rest,” said Bayarri. “The partnership also allows us to sell our solution as we want to sell it-not just as an algorithm but packaged into a holistic software platform including our rules engine, data mining, user role management, zero-footprint DICOM viewer, and much more.”

It was especially important for QUIBIM to find an industry leading hardware partner capable of preserving its strong brand image and reputation for excellence among customers. This is partly down to the specific user base it is marketing to - radiologists traditionally pay more attention to the hardware they're using than the software.

“We cannot put QUIBIM’s software in just any hardware; such decisions must be made carefully,” Bayarri explained. “For this reason as well, Advantech was chosen, as the high-quality of their products and services are an excellent match for QUIBIM. End-users characterise us by the machines we deploy so they have to be the best quality.”

It’s not all about the quality of the hardware and integration services Advantech provides. After-sales services, distribution, and support will be critical to QUIBIM’s long-term success as it grows from being a pure-play software developer to a smart solution provider. With Advantech’s support, Bayarri and his team look to make a real difference in the global fight against COVID-19 and other serious diseases.