Karim Karti is the former president of GE Healthcare Imaging and the current CEO of RapidAI – a company founded more than 10 years ago by Dr. Greg Albers, one of the world’s leading stroke researchers and director of the Stanford Stroke Center.
For more than 20 years, most healthcare facilities believed that doctors had less than three hours after a stroke to provide treatment. However, Dr Albers’ landmark study ultimately demonstrated that thrombectomy (procedure to remove blood clots) as late as 24 hours after stroke onset is still beneficial for patients. .
Albers and Dr. Roland Bammer founded RapidAI to streamline the stroke process and get patients to treatment faster.
Since then, their AI technology has been applied beyond the treatment of stroke, aneurysm, pulmonary embolism, etc. Today, RapidAI is being deployed in more than 2,000 hospitals in more than 100 countries, the company said.
With extensive medical technology experience, Karti joined RapidAI this year as CEO with the goal of expanding the company’s AI product offerings and growing the company globally.
Healthcare IT News spoke with Karti to discuss AI and its treatment for stroke, the combination of AI and urgent care, and its potential to save lives and improve outcomes for millions of people with medical conditions. vascular and neurological prevalence globally each year.
Q. Please explain how your company founder can use artificial intelligence technology to change the way stroke is treated.
ONE. For decades, clinicians generally believed they had less than three hours after stroke onset to treat. However, Dr. Greg Albers’ research ultimately demonstrated that thrombectomy as late as 24 hours after stroke onset is still beneficial for patients. These findings have completely revolutionized the way neurologists think about and treat this condition.
But Dr. Albert does not want to stop there. He and his colleague Dr Roland Bammer know that time is still of the essence with stroke and they want to help doctors more Quickly diagnose stroke and plan treatment. Together at Stanford University, they developed a fully automated AI-powered image processing software for CT and MRI scans.
Since then, countless studies have shown AI’s effectiveness in assisting with more accurate diagnoses, reducing treatment time, and ultimately improving patient outcomes. Not only that, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of clinicians using it today that say it’s worth it. There are even many stroke patients who have benefited from AI and are still alive today thanks to it.
Q. How do artificial intelligence and urgent care go together?
ONE. AI is and will be useful in many areas of the healthcare chain. The urgent need and coordination of care in the ER make AI and mobile workflow technology extremely useful and impactful when making decisions for physicians and care teams.
I’m certainly not talking about replacing doctors with AI – but how AI can better assist and reassert clinicians in clinical decision making. This is extremely important in emergency care, in part because the ER is a multidisciplinary facility with many different pathways of care.
AI can help clinicians categorize patients more quickly, choose the most appropriate course of treatment for that patient, determine if they are likely to be a good fit or need to transfer patients, and ultimately deliver Patients arrive for treatment faster.
AI is also particularly valuable in urgent care because of the speed with which some decisions need to be made.
For example, when a patient enters the emergency department with stroke symptoms, having the right technology to process scans quickly, produce easy-to-understand images, aid in rapid diagnosis, and notify and Getting team members together in a timely manner can be a matter of life and death – allowing team members to share images and scans easily, helping team members communicate securely and efficiently through social media. mobile technology and sharing additional information about a patient’s medical history – all of which are important in stroke care.
While we begin treating stroke, we continue to expand into other areas of urgent care that can be of great benefit, such as pulmonary embolism and other heart and blood vessel conditions.
Q. What is the potential of AI to save lives and improve outcomes for millions of people with common vascular and neurological diseases globally each year?
ONE. When a patient has a stroke, their brain doesn’t get the oxygen it needs, causing brain tissue to die. So the faster a patient is treated, the more their brain will be saved. AI is radically changing the speed at which treatment decisions are made, thereby reducing the amount of brain tissue lost and improving the likelihood of patients walking out of the recovery room uninjured.
Another common condition is a brain aneurysm or bulge in a blood vessel that, if it grows large enough, is at risk of bursting. When an aneurysm ruptures, it causes bleeding in the brain, also known as a hemorrhagic stroke, which can be life-threatening. Identifying an aneurysm at risk of rupture is key to preventing these serious complications.
When an unruptured aneurysm is detected on a CT scan, neurologists measure it. However, because of the uneven shape of the aneurysm, it can be difficult to get an accurate reading. AI has been shown to provide more accurate measurements and help patients receive life-saving treatment before it is too late.
Pulmonary embolism is a blockage in the pulmonary artery of the lungs. They can be extremely difficult to assess and diagnose – not only because of the many possible symptoms, but also because there is no single test to detect them.
Treatment plans are also complex and vary from patient to patient. Given the amount of time and resources required to diagnose, evaluate, and treat PE, AI could be key in streamlining this process and improving patient outcomes.
However, it’s important to note that not all AI is created equal. Amidst the excitement surrounding the potential of this type of technology, unfortunately, the importance of clinical evidence is often overlooked. Strong clinical evidence not only builds confidence in the technology for both patients and providers, but is also important for increasing adoption.
AI backed by peer-reviewed clinical evidence is indeed the key to propelling this field into the next generation of healthcare.
While we have already seen the impact of clinically proven AI in reducing patient morbidity and mortality in these three disease states, we are at an early stage and the future is immense. promise. The opportunity to use AI on all vascular conditions and more is real and it is here.
The innovations taking place across the globe will not only have a tremendous impact on the lives of patients, but also on hospital staff, families and carers. As we continue to innovate and improve our artificial intelligence, doctors and hospital staff will be better supported to reduce burdens and improve patient outcomes. Everyone wins in that scenario.
Q. You reported that your company’s technology is being deployed in more than 2,000 hospitals in over 100 countries. What are a few real-world examples of how technology improves patient outcomes?
ONE. We’re incredibly proud that thousands of patients have benefited from our technology, but of course, there are also some particularly compelling examples that come to mind. One was a young patient, a 29-year-old firefighter, and a paramedic with no underlying medical conditions who suffered a stroke while exercising.
The neurointervention team has been alerted, so when the patient arrives at the hospital, they will conduct a CT scan and send an automatic notification to the team as soon as the scan results are available. The scan revealed an immediate need for mechanical thrombectomy (a clot-removing procedure that removes the clot that caused the stroke).
Thanks to our technology, the entire team is ready to go immediately and patients are treated immediately, restoring blood flow in less than 60 minutes.
The second example is a 70-year-old patient with stroke symptoms, including the inability to speak. When he was taken to the hospital, they did a CT scan and an unenhanced CT angiogram, but neither of the scans showed anything abnormal. The doctors then performed CT perfusion scans and, using the AI platform, were able to detect areas of the brain affected by reduced blood flow – indicating a stroke.
The patient had a distal vascular occlusion, which is a blockage in an artery so small that it cannot be seen on other types of brain scans. AI helped doctors determine the appropriate treatment, and ultimately the treatment was successful. The patient was able to speak again the next day and there were almost no complications.
Our software has even been used to help treat medical emergencies outside the traditional field of vascular and neurological conditions. Recently there was a story about a boy who had a metal straw impaled in his brain artery.
One of our modules, commonly used to search for salvageable brain tissue, is used to determine ultimately that the patient’s carotid artery (injury to the entire right hemisphere of the brain) has severely reduced perfusion. Doctors used this information to guide treatment decisions and save the boy’s life.
Overall, we measure our success by the success of our providers, payers, and physicians, and the ultimate impact on patients, which these statistics represent:
This technology has been shown to reduce door to CT time by 69%, door to CTA interpretation by 63%, door to decision in 52 minutes, door to door by 60%, door to groin by 75 % and door to needle 49%.
AI is driving a major revolution. It started with Dr. Albers’ original research, which led to an extension of stroke treatment time to 24 hours, thereby saving large numbers of patients who would not have been treated otherwise. .
Our ambition is to continue pioneering this field and grow it into the next generation of healthcare – where AI-powered decision-making and collaboration is always within reach. your hand, anytime, anywhere.
Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.
