Completed Computing & AI Public Health & Healthcare

INSIGHT: The Health Data Research Hub for Eye Health

Funder UKRI
Recipient organisation University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust Source-published name: University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust
Funding £3.4M
Period Sept 2019 — Aug 2022

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Every year, the NHS captures over 25 million routine eye scans that could reveal far more than sight problems—but this data is currently locked away and unused for research. INSIGHT is a partnership between the NHS, universities, and industry that makes anonymised eye imaging data accessible for innovation. The problem is that these scans contain a uniquely valuable health snapshot: the eye is the only place in the body where blood vessels and nerves can be viewed directly without surgery. Changes visible in the retina can signal early signs of diabetes, dementia, and cardiovascular disease. Yet no system exists to pool this data at scale for research. If successful, INSIGHT will transform those 25 million annual scans into a resource for developing and testing new AI diagnostic tools, running "smart" clinical trials for drugs and devices, and generating real-world evidence on what treatments actually work. This could accelerate how quickly AI systems move from development to routine NHS use, catching diseases earlier and personalising care. The infrastructure itself—secure data access, ethical governance, and analytical expertise—will also serve as a model for other health data hubs across the UK.

View original technical description
"There is an increasing demand for ‘Big Data’ to enable innovation in health technologies and improve patient care. INSIGHT-DIH creates an NHS-academic-industry partnership to make anonymised datasets accessible and provide critical services that respond to user needs (patients/industry/other), including ‘real-world evidence’ and ‘smart’ clinical trials for new drugs or devices, and accelerating AI-algorithm development for the NHS and beyond. INSIGHT-DIH is focused on eye disease and its application to wider health, including diabetes C19and dementia. INSIGHT-DIH turns routine eye imaging - currently >25million/yr (UK)- into an exceptional asset for innovation as a convenient, uniquely valuable health snapshot. INSIGHT-DIH uses anonymised large-scale data and advanced analytics to bring new clinical insights: from detection, diagnosis and referral, to new treatments and personalised healthcare. INSIGHT-DIH unlocks this opportunity by pairing unique anonymised data assets to hubs of expertise where patients and clinicians can, with industry, more efficientlyexplore the safety and use of new AI systems. This will accelerate the pace with which AI is able to translate to real patient benefit for the NHS and accelerate innovation across all sectors."

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Alan Karthikesalingam (Co-Investigator)Alastair Denniston (Principal Investigator)Krishnarajah Nirantharakumar (Co-Investigator)Pearse Keane (Co-Investigator)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Enhancing INSIGHT Health Data Research Hub - The World’s Largest Ophthalmic Bioresource
Discover-NOW: The Health Data Research Hub for Real World Evidence
INSIGHT - The health data Research Hub for Eye Health - Capital Award
I-CAIRD: Industrial Centre for AI Research in Digital Diagnostics
MyEyeSite phase 2: safe sharing of data between rare eye disease patients and clinicians under social distancing

Original classification

Intramural

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.