A new clinical trial could help overcome one of the biggest barriers to treating ear disease in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in rural and remote Australia, using artificial intelligence to provide instant diagnostic support to local healthcare workers, avoiding the long delays associated with Ear Nose Throat (ENT) specialist review.

Aboriginal children living in remote and regional Australia experience the highest rates of ear disease in the world. Delays in diagnosis and treatment can lead to lifelong consequences including hearing loss, speech and language delays, poor educational outcomes and social disadvantage.

The innovative study, known as DrumBeat.ai, is being led by Associate Professor Narinder Singh from Westmead Private Hospital in Sydney and aims to use artificial intelligence technology to analyse images of a child's eardrum and provide an immediate assessment of whether disease is present.

Associate Professor Singh said while ear disease could often be identified relatively easily, the greatest challenge was ensuring children could access specialist assessment in a timely manner.

"The problem has never been diagnosing ear disease, it's getting children to a specialist," Associate Professor Singh said.

"For families living in remote communities, specialist services are often hundreds or even thousands of kilometres away. This can result in significant delays in diagnosis and treatment during some of the most important years of a child's development."

"DrumBeat.ai has been designed for use by local community nurses and healthcare workers, either based in remote communities or visiting on travelling telehealth- equipped vans, enabling children to be assessed closer to home and reducing the need to travel long distances to access specialist care."

"Instead of waiting weeks or months to see a specialist, a child could have their ear examined by a local healthcare worker and receive an instant assessment," Associate Professor Singh said.

"Our goal is to transform the model of care by bringing instant specialist-level diagnostic capability directly into communities."

The project, which was funded by the Ramsay Hospital Research Foundation, is the culmination of more than six years of research and development led by Associate Professor Singh in collaboration with a team of computer engineers from Microsoft's AI for Good program.

Associate Professor Singh said the potential benefits extended beyond improving access to care.

"Together, the multidisciplinary team has developed and trained the artificial intelligence platform to automatically recognise signs of ear disease using a training dataset of more than 10,000 ear images collected from 93 communities in Queensland and the Northern Territory over a ten-year period,” he said.

"If successful, DrumBeat.ai could transform access to ear healthcare not only for Aboriginal children across Australia, but also for children living in underserved communities around the world."

CEO of Ramsay Hospital Research Foundation, Nicola Ware, said the Foundation was proud to support research focused on addressing significant health inequities.

"DrumBeat.ai is an outstanding example of how innovation and technology can be harnessed to improve access to healthcare for vulnerable communities," Ms Ware said.

"Through supporting research like this, we aim to accelerate practical solutions that improve access to healthcare and help ensure geography is not a barrier to receiving timely care."

The DrumBeat.ai trial is now underway in remote regions of Western Australia and will evaluate the technology's effectiveness in supporting earlier and more accessible diagnosis of ear disease in rural and remote communities.