Smart Human-centred Effortless support for Professional clinical Applications

SHERPA will empower interventional radiologists (IR), an overburdened group of specialists who use medical imaging and image-guided devices to perform complex, high-risk interventions.

Since trust in technology is rooted in relationships – not in a technical specification or feature, AI-powered assistive technologies will be delivered as a seamless, trusted companion (a ‘sherpa’) across the workflow for two clinical domains (Neurology and Oncology), validated with IR and patients through seven clinical studies, and made available to other medical specialities through a framework methodology and outreach to the entire IR community.

The automated workflows and their benefits at user, patient and system levels will be evaluated for two clinical applications: 1. Minimally invasive neurovascular interventions (brain aneurysms) and 2. Minimally invasive interventional oncology (liver tumour ablations).

Fueled by cutting-edge advances in AI and robotics yet profusely human-centric, workflow automation will minimise the risk of errors and inconsistencies, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of clinical decisions and boosting IR confidence and job satisfaction.

As repetitive, time-consuming tasks can be performed automatically, the IR will gain the much-needed relief to focus on the intervention and the interaction with the patient; the expertise threshold will be decreased, improving workload distribution and team dynamics.

Through generalising principles and methodological framework, the insights from SHERPA will extend their benefits to other medical specialties dealing with complex workflows and critical decision-making.