Dr. Campbell Rogers on HeartFlow’s CTA technology.

HeartFlow’s PRECISE trial found that their precision approach for evaluating people with stable chest pain avoided unnecessary testing and improved care without putting patients at risk of a missed heart disease diagnosis. In this Cardiac Wire Show, HeartFlow’s Chief Medical OfficerDr. Campbell Rogers dives into the PRECISE trial results and its implications for clinical practice.

Cardiology Business

GE HealthCare Adds Echo Guidance with Caption Health Acquisition

GE HealthCare took a major step towards expanding echo ultrasound exams to new users and settings, acquiring AI guidance startup Caption Health.

GE plans to integrate Caption’s AI guidance technology into its point-of-care ultrasound platform, specifically emphasizing how Caption’s tech will help streamline echo adoption among novice operators and bring heart failure exams into “doctors’ offices, the home, and alternate sites of care.”

• That’s particularly notable given healthcare’s major shift outside of hospital walls, and the continued challenges with sonographer staffing levels.
• That strategy is also helped by the fact that Caption already operates a unique home echo exam and virtual diagnosis service through partnerships with Portamedic and HeartBeat Health. 

GE didn’t disclose the tuck-in acquisition’s value, but Caption is relatively large for an imaging AI startup (79 employees on LinkedIn, >$62M raised) and is arguably the most established company in the ultrasound guidance segment (FDA & CE approved, CMS-reimbursed, notable alliances).

However, there’s still a sizable group of startups focusing on making echo exams easier and more accessible, including AI companies developing similar echo image acquisition guidance tools or creating AI solutions that automate echo measurements and reporting.

The acquisition is also another sign that the imaging AI consolidation trend remains in full swing, marking at least the ninth AI startup acquisition since January 2022 and the third so far in 2023. That consolidation has largely steered clear of cardiology-related AI startups before now, but it’s worth noting that this is the second AI guidance startup to be acquired by an ultrasound manufacturer in the last six months.

The Takeaway

Echo’s potential expansion to new users and clinical settings could create the kind of growth that most exams only experience once in their lifetime (or never experience), and ease of use will likely dictate how far echo is able to expand. That could make this acquisition particularly significant for GE HealthCare and for echo’s path towards far broader adoption.

User Experience and Cardiovascular Imaging Transformation

Check out this Change Healthcare video discussing the importance of user experience in the adoption of structured reporting, and how it can lead to improvements in imaging speed, quality, and cardiologist workflow. 

Revolutionizing Heart Attack Prevention

Cleerly founder and CEO Dr. James Min talks with preventive cardiologist Dr. Erica Jones about Cleerly’s groundbreaking new pathway for heart attack prevention. Watch their conversation to learn about Cleerly’s impact on cardiac health outcomes.

The Wire

• Aspirin Risks Exceed Benefits: A meta-analysis spanning 16 studies (171k people) found that the risk of major bleeding associated with taking aspirin outweighs its protective effects for those without atherosclerotic CVD (ASCVD). The participants taking aspirin had a 15% reduced relative risk of MI compared to those in the control group, but they also had a 48% increased risk of major bleeding. 

• Memora & Virtua: Memora Health is partnering with New Jersey-based Virtua Health to simplify complex care management across the system’s 350 facilities. The Memora platform will provide two-way communication between patients and their providers outside of the hospital, intelligent triage of questions to care team members, and an EHR integration for automated data capture. Virtua will first implement the platform into programs for congestive heart failure, colonoscopies, and specialty pharmacy, with expansion into other use cases planned for later this year.

• Healthcare State of the Union: Healthcare was a recurring theme throughout President Biden’s 7,300-word State of the Union address last week. Becker’s rounded up 10 takeaways from the speech, most of which centered around the Cancer Moonshot initiative, capping Medicare prescription costs, and celebrating a pandemic that “no longer controls our lives.” Abortion was mentioned 72 times during the address, with the president vowing to veto any national ban that crosses his desk.

• Implementing a Cardiology Telehealth Framework: Following implementation of a structured cardiology telehealth framework in June 2022, a multi-site cardiovascular practice in Florida saw a 217% increase in telehealth visits, rising from an average of 87 visits per month from March to June 2022 to an average of 276 visits per month from June to December of that same year. Since July 2022, the practice has sustained over 250 telehealth appointments per month.

• Imageless ECGI: A Journal of Electrocardiology study showed that a new approach to ECG imaging (ECGI) could allow for AFib detection without requiring surgery or CT scans. The authors compared standard ECGI to Corify Care’s “imageless” ECGI, which relies on estimated cardiac geometry based on anatomical torso characteristics. They found a very strong correlation between the estimated values and the actual values (correlation coefficients: 0.97 & 0.93), suggesting that imageless ECGI can effectively estimate useful cardiac parameters. 

• Philips and TriHealth Partner: Philips and TriHealth have entered into a long-term partnership to implement Philips’ portfolio of cardiology solutions at the TriHealth Heart and Vascular Institute. Later this year, TriHealth patients and staff can expect access to Philips technologies that span patient monitoring, decision support tools, technology management plans, and the Philips Lumify handheld ultrasound. 

• Interventional Cardiology Fellows’ Educational Experience: A new study investigated how the iodinated contrast shortage during the pandemic may have affected interventional cardiology (IC) fellowship training. A 59-question survey revealed that even though most IC fellows feel somewhat comfortable using various IC techniques, 13% reported having performed fewer than the ACGME requirement of 250 PCIs per year in 2021 and 2022, when the shortage was at its peak.

• Home-Based Rehabilitation: A heart care team in Poland created a 24-day hybrid telerehabilitation protocol for heart disease patients. This protocol included ECGs, cardiac consultations, transthoracic echos, exercise tests, 10 days of ambulatory training, education and psychotherapy followed by home-based cardiac telemonitored Nordic Walking training. Those who participated in the program (N=58) saw improvements in functional capacity as well as a greater ability to return to work. 

• Medtronic Fined $106.5M for Patent Infringement: Medtronic was found guilty of infringing a 2014 Colibri Heart Valve patent concerning TAVR systems. The Colorado-based company accused Medtronic and its CoreValve subsidiary of violating Colibri’s patent rights in the development of its TAVR devices, including those sold under the CoreValve and Evolut names. Medtronic argued that the patent claims were invalid, but the jury ruled the company should pay Colibri $106.5M in damages.

• Avicenna.AI Adds $7.5M: Avicenna.AI closed a $7.5M Series A round (total funding now nearly $10M) that it will use to scale its global presence and diversify its product portfolio. The French startup’s AI-powered imaging solutions can help cardiologists and radiologists detect signs of aortic dissections, pulmonary embolisms, and small and large vessel occlusions. Avicenna.ai has big plans for 2023, forecasting deployments at 30 new sites every month of the year, and adding to its growing list of four FDA clearances and six CE marks.

The Benefits of Outsourced Post-Processing

Using an outsourced cardiac image post-processing solution doesn’t have to mean sacrificing control of the results. Discover how PIA’s customizable post-processing workflow can help you get the most out of your images.

The HeartFlow Story

Shifting the standard of care is a monumental undertaking, and yet physicians across the globe are embracing HeartFlow’s FFRct Analysis. Hear from the co-founder how HeartFlow got its start, and why physicians love it.  

Us2.ai Brings Clarity to Cardiac Imaging

Learn about how Us2.ai is bringing simplicity and clarity to the world of cardiac ultrasound, on the latest episode of The Bleeding Edge of Digital Health featuring Us2.ai’s founders, James Hare and Dr. Carolyn Lam.