AI-Guided Ultrasound Technology Helps Inexperienced Providers Acquire Diagnostic Quality Cardiac Images

Every year, millions of patients worldwide arrive at emergency departments with symptoms suggestive of a heart attack or heart failure. Quick and accurate cardiac ultrasound in such acute care scenarios can be lifesaving. Additionally, countless heart disease patients require ongoing cardiac monitoring. However, substantial healthcare system bottlenecks and inadequate training resources often hinder timely and regular access to cardiac ultrasound globally. Now, a novel artificial intelligence (AI) guided software aims to enable a broader range of healthcare professionals to perform cardiac ultrasounds in multiple care settings, thereby expanding patient access to cardiac imaging.

UltraSight (Rehovot, Israel) has received FDA clearance for its AI-driven ultrasound guidance technology. The company's FDA approval application was supported by a landmark pivotal study demonstrating that real-time guidance of the ultrasound probe and feedback on image quality enable healthcare professionals without previous ultrasound experience to obtain diagnostic quality images. UltraSight's AI Guidance software is designed for use in two-dimensional transthoracic echocardiography (2D-TTE) for adult patients, specifically for capturing the heart's 10 standard views. The software, designed to complement point-of-care ultrasound systems, is compatible with the Philips Lumify Ultrasound System. When used with a compatible device, UltraSight's underlying AI neural network predicts the ultrasound probe's position relative to the heart using the ultrasound video stream and guides the user in maneuvering the probe to obtain diagnostic quality cardiac images.

Image: UltraSight`s AI-powered cardiac ultrasound technology has been granted FDA clearance (Photo courtesy of UltraSight)

UltraSight's real-time AI guidance software can support healthcare professionals without sonography experience in obtaining cardiac ultrasound images at the point of care across various settings. This increases the detection rate of heart disease and improves patient access to cardiac monitoring. UltraSight's solution empowers hospital staff to enhance patient triage and treatment with improved efficiency and clinical confidence. Additionally, it can extend access to care for chronic heart disease patients by facilitating cardiac ultrasound at local community levels, potentially boosting patient adherence to essential treatments.

"The issues arising from the disproportion between the number of heart disease patients and availability of cardiac ultrasound was a key driver for the company's founding team," said Davidi Vortman, CEO of UltraSight. "The need to solve this significant disparity is why we applied deep geometrical machine-learning techniques to cardiac ultrasound, and what we found is that AI has the potential to close the skillset gap – empowering medical professionals to successfully acquire timely and accurate cardiac ultrasound images anywhere. With FDA clearance, we can now move forward with bringing our innovation to market and ultimately advancing patient care for the millions in need."

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