AI-powered heart scanning software trialled across New Zealand
Thursday, 16 September 2021
NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
An AI-powered heart scanning and reporting platform is in clinical trial at multiple DHBs across New Zealand and being used as a primary tool at a private heart clinic, with two coming online within weeks.
HeartLab’s Pulse platform streamlines workflow by sorting and analysing ultrasound images and automating repetitive and time-consuming measurement tasks. It also generates patient reports for doctors to finalise.
Founder Will Hewitt teamed up with cardiologist and cardiac imaging specialist Patrick Gladding to form HeartLab three years ago at the age of 18.
The tool automatically takes a number of measurements on an echocardiogram, which doctors use to diagnose cardiovascular disease.
When done manually by doctors there can be a 15-20 percent variation in these measurements and automation makes it 30 percent faster to assess each scan, he says. The tool also highlights areas of interest for the cardiologist to review.
“It doesn’t replace anything the doctor is doing: it makes it faster and more accurate,” explains Hewitt.
He says it is a big step to have the first private clinics starting to use it and uploading images on a daily basis.
“It was being trialled at Waitematā DHB and now it’s being stress tested at these clinics by being used daily and they are providing feedback to us which we can implement in real-time,” Hewitt says.
“Feedback from cardiologists has been super positive - they love how Pulse goes beyond analysing heart data and fits in with their workflow, so they can complete their interpretation of the patient's heart health via the reporting tool.”
A clinical study is being conducted on the AI at multiple DHBs, with results expected by early next year.
These results will form part of a submission to the US Food and Drug Administration for regulatory approval of Pulse, in the first quarter of next year.
HeartLab has raised $3.5m through a funding round led by Silicon Valley’s Founders Fund that will allow its entry into the US market.
The company plans to hire ten new staff within the next six months, joining its 13-strong team based in central Auckland.
Hewitt says the plan is to ultimately train the AI to diagnose disease.
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