We are pleased to announce that Project Check Mate, the nonprofit project pioneering the world’s first AI-assisted national skin check program in Australia, was recently announced a finalist in the SA Health Awards. We are proud to support this cause with DermEngine, our intelligent dermatology and smart skin analytics platform for early skin cancer detection. 

'Project Check Mate' providing public skin checks 

Project Check Mate is an initiative by Skin Check Champions aimed at reducing the prevalence of skin cancer in Australia by offering free public skin checks and education with hopes of establishing a national screening program. Skin Check Champions have access to DermDx AI, a supplementary diagnostic support tool, under an IRB approved study and is the first implementation of AI in a real-world skin cancer screening setting at a national scale. The AI technology supports the nurse-led clinics and allows them to screen and check lesions against a database of clinical images. Dermatology software like DermEngine can support nurses with the confidence to perform dermoscopy, a task that typically requires years of specialized training or clinical experience to distinguish malignant from benign lesions.

Who is South Australia Health? 

SA Health is the government body for the public health system of South Australia who is responsible for delivering health services and overseeing the state's healthcare policies and programs. 

What are the SA Health Awards? 

The SA Health Awards are an annual event that recognizes excellence and innovation in South Australia's public health system. The Minister’s Award for Innovation celebrates groundbreaking projects and creative solutions that demonstrate a significant improvement in healthcare delivery. This year, Project Check Mate was named a finalist in the category for their work in transforming skin cancer detection and care for regional communities across Australia.

Together against Australia’s ‘national cancer’

Project Check Mate is utilizing the DermEngine platform to capture and store dermoscopic images for later analysis by a professional and assess suspicious lesions now, with their clinical expertise additionally supported by DermDx. The proposed program has performed over 500 full body skin checks in 2022-23 by thirteen trained nurses and identified 40 potential melanoma (7.86%), and 129 non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) (25.34%) in the first research pilot. Collaborating with many centers of excellence, Project Check Mate is a mobile solution intended to reach the remote and rural parts of Australia to provide more public skin checks to communities in need. 

Skin checks can be administered this way until further analysis can be completed by a professional later. This provides the public and those most vulnerable with an interim solution to keep their concerns at bay. The first-of-its-kind workflow and process enable simple skin checks to be deployed at large for effective screening and early detection of skin cancer. The solution is an alternative where wait times are 4-12 months for seeing a dermatologist¹. 

Conclusion

The Skin Check Champions were one of few finalists in the SA Health Awards recognized for their excellent work in skin cancer early detection, prevention, and education in Australia and we are proud technology partners. MetaOptima solutions include MoleScope for mobile smartphone dermoscopy to take high-quality, medical-grade images easily. DermEngine can help manage these cases and images and can extend resources by referring across a network for additional support. DermEngine AI tools provides a preliminary hypothesis that can give peace of mind until images can return a significant or insignificant malignancy-risk score- where cases can be expedited further for urgent care. When this alternative exists, majority of cases (which often turn out benign) can be screened with high accuracy, while urgent cases can take our healthcare resources and professionals for more careful examination. 

See the original post by Skin Check Champions on Facebook.

-The MetaOptima Team

Mobile dermoscopy and teledermatology can help make skin check services more widely available. Request a demo to see how DermEngine & MoleScope can pair to lower access for quality healthcare. 

 

 

Sources

1. https://www.newcastle.edu.au