The United Arab Emirates will bring the first radiology artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm in the country to its medical fitness centers as part of the Dubai Health Authority (DHA)’s Dubai Health Strategy 2021, the Gulf News reports.

Chest x-ray scans are required for mandatory medical fitness assessments for those seeking residency, and officials believe the algorithm will cut down processing time and provide a more streamlined system for issuing residency.

The DHA inked a deal with Agfa IT Health Care Systems to bring AI capabilities to a few medical centers initially, with the hopes of introducing the technology across all 19 of its medical fitness centers.

Last year a total of 2,126,066 people visited the DHA-run medical fitness centers which require the x-rays to screen for tuberculosis cases.

“On an average, each medical fitness center processes over 5,000 chest x-rays and nearly 90 percent of these fall in the normal category. However, the radiologists take time to process this,” said James Jay, president of Agfa, to Gulf News. “Our AI system has an algorithm which will segregate the 90 percent results and flag the remaining 10 percent, straightaway providing time for potential cases to be examined by radiologists. The algorithm running in the background will standardize the reporting methods and streamline the entire system drastically reducing the time taken.”