Digital Eye Clinic - Bringing AI diagnostics into practice

The Digital Eye Clinic project, carried out by Stadtspital Zürich and the Spross Research Institute for the Advancement of Ophthalmology, was part of the Canton of Zurich’s Innovation Sandbox for AI. It explored the medical, technological, regulatory and ethical prerequisites for integrating AI diagnostics into clinical workflows.

The project evaluated existing diagnostic providers and platforms within the current legal and technical framework of the city of Zurich. As no commercial vendor met the clinic’s key criteria, the team developed and validated its own AI models based on opensource research frameworks. Alongside technological validation, the project examined critical issues in regulation, data protection and medical ethics.

The results provide practical insights and best practices for hospitals and healthcare providers considering
AI-assisted diagnostics. They emphasise the need for structured selection and implementation processes, open and interoperable architectures, early clinical involvement, and a careful assessment of whether to use open-source models or rely on external vendors. Beyond ophthalmology, the findings offer transferable lessons for the safe and effective adoption of AI in other areas of clinical practice.