By Ross Upton, CEO and Academic co-founder of Ultromics
When it comes to diagnosing coronary artery disease (CAD), clinicians rely on the most widely used method of heart scans (echocardiograms), to help make decisions. Clinicians analyse these with the naked eye, which takes time, and the accuracy of reading relies on the expertise and training of the individual. With the naked eye, only a limited number of factors in a scan can be identified and used to make the diagnosis.
Of the 60,000 heart scans carried out each year to look for coronary artery disease, around one in five are misdiagnosed. This presents two major problems: firstly that patients are at risk of being sent home with a potentially fatal disease; and secondly patients being sent for unnecessary surgery, costly for both patients and hospitals.
Patients need more reliable and effective cardiology tests, and healthcare providers need to be more efficient. By introducing better tests, health organisations worldwide stand to save a significant amount of money. Integrating tests that have been augmented by artificial intelligence (AI) into future cardiology appointments have the potential to deliver these outcomes.
Heart disease is one of the biggest killers globally, but what if there was a way to improve the detection of its presence? At Ultromics we’ve designed a technology, augmented by AI, that will improve both the lives of patients and doctors.
How AI-driven health tech can help doctors
EchoGo is the world’s first AI-based, ultrasound diagnostic support tool for Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) and is currently undergoing the largest clinical trial programme of its kind. It identifies thousands of data points in every single echocardiogram image, and uses machine learning to analyse them, and assist clinicians in making their diagnoses. It has been trained with one of the world’s largest imaging databases and has so far shown its ability to identify thousands of data points, compared to just a few factors by the human eye.
Of course, the more sophisticated the diagnostic tools, the greater the probability of being able to provide an accurate evaluation of the disease state. This is clearly good news for patients, as it means the chance of something serious being missed is greatly reduced.
The aim of EchoGo is by no means to replace clinicians, but simply to help them make the most informed diagnostic decisions possible. This will ultimately improve patient outcomes, but also prevent the stress of a wrong diagnosis, helping the patient experience to run more smoothly and saving money for healthcare providers.
What does AI mean for the future of cardiology?
Over the last decade, there has been a technological shift – and software has, in some instances, become more valuable than hardware. The advent of AI will help to build on this trend. Health tech hardware will likely get smaller and become integrated into smartphones. With smaller, more mobile hardware, first line cardiology diagnosis could be carried out in patients’ homes – eliminating the need for patients to come into hospital. This would be beneficial as occupied space in hospitals can be an expensive hurdle for healthcare providers – according to the BBC, the average cost of an occupied hospital bed is about £400 per day.
The introduction of AI in diagnostics could also have a positive effect on patient waiting times as clinicians can make more accurate diagnoses more quickly. This would help to address the economic pressures impacting on the healthcare system.
Introducing more sophisticated diagnosis tools could also help shift time and money towards maintaining cardiovascular health from a younger age. Doing this requires better, earlier diagnostics and cardiac health monitoring, in a way that is easy to deliver locally, rather than in hospital. This is where technology like EchoGo is perfect to fill the void. The software is easy to use and install and can feasibly be used regularly to check in on cardiovascular health. It’s also sophisticated enough that it doesn’t need to be administered by doctors with 30 years of training – it could be administered by those specifically trained to use it.
Ultimately, AI-based health tech will be beneficial for both patients and clinicians. It can unlock patterns invisible to the human eye – making it a real asset to cardiovascular doctors. With heart disease being so prevalent, there is still more work to be done to tighten up the diagnosis and treatment process. All healthcare providers across the world would benefit from the increased efficiency and quality of life for patients would significantly improve with the introduction of AI based cardiovascular diagnostic tools.
