Calcification of coronary artery

In June, Aidoc announced a partnership with University Hospitals to deploy its AI imaging solution in hospitals and outpatient clinics. Ohio-based University Hospitals Health System (UH) has teamed up with healthcare AI company Aidoc to catch conditions like pulmonary embolism, coronary artery calcification and intracranial hemorrhage expediently.Aidoc’s platform has more than 30 care pathways and the company has 17 FDA-cleared algorithms, which it claims is the most clinical algorithms of any company. By partnering with Aidoc, hospitals and health systems can rapidly ramp up the use of AI in their practices, so it can make a large-scale impact.This is what UH has done. The health system has deployed Aidoc’s AI platform, aiOS, across 13 hospitals and dozens of outpatient facilities.“When a patient arrives at a UH facility and undergoes a CT scan for an injury or pain, Aidoc's AI analyzes the scan using its comprehensive algorithms,” a press release by Aidoc says. “The technology identifies both expected and unexpected findings, helps physicians prioritize urgent cases and ensures all flagged conditions are reviewed by the care team.”"Today's care delivery is incredibly complex with numerous moving parts," Donna Plecha, M.D., chair of radiology at UH, said in a statement. "Aidoc’s AI technology assists our radiologists in evaluating various patient images, allowing our clinicians to access precise, actionable data quickly. The AI technology enables our care teams to be more accurate and efficient leading to even more exceptional care for our patients.”Elad Walach, founder and CEO of Aidoc, said that from the get-go, UH had a vision for AI to make a big impact on clinical care. Walach said the health system wanted to be strategic in picking an AI partner that would solve more than one problem at a time. With Aidoc, UH has been able to launch over a dozen AI solutions in a matter of months. “UH has been very strategic in how they looked at the AI space because a lot of health systems … they run after one shiny point solution at a time,” Walach said. “But because of the adoption time and scaling time, it takes them, let's say, one year to adopt one AI solution, and then another year to adopt the second.”UH thought about AI acceleration from the get-go, which Walach said is unique.Scalability is one of the goals of Aidoc, but it also focuses on outcomes. For example, in the partnership with one of UH’s clinical innovation centers, Aidoc will study how the deployment of its platform affects quality and cost of care.One of UH’s goals in bringing in an AI partner was to solve the long wait times for outpatient and ambulatory visits. In time-critical cases, waiting weeks to visit a doctor after a chest CT could have major adverse consequences. With Aidoc, existing chest CT scans, for example, can instantly be evaluated by an algorithm that can detect a pulmonary embolism. A patient can then be elevated to the proper level of care and be saved from waiting weeks for a diagnosis.Aidoc said the deployment of its AI solutions is expected to markedly enhance patient safety and care quality.Walach said about half of hospitals and health systems are using some type of AI in their radiology practices. Aidoc accounts for a large portion of them. Aidoc is partnering with more than 150 hospitals and health systems in the U.S., which Walach said is about 25% of the market. Aidoc is also used by the top three radiology practices in the U.S., he noted.“The biggest problem of the AI space today is fragmentation, right? Because if you fix one problem, you create three others because you create even more siloes with data,” Walach explained.Walach said AI has the potential to solve interoperability challenges in healthcare, but the deployment of one AI solution isn’t going to fix health IT. Health systems need a platform that can bring data silos together rather than create yet another data silo, he noted.Founded in 2016, Aidoc has raised $264 million to date, according to Crunchbase, including a $110 million series D round in 2022. Its backers include TCV, Alpha Intelligence Capital and CDIB Capital.

Being near and having more exposure to urban green space and blue (water) space is linked to lower odds of having coronary artery calcification in middle age, which is an early marker of cardiovascular disease. The associations were more pronounced among Black individuals and those living in neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status, with the strongest effects observed in Black individuals in economically deprived neighborhoods. Being near and having more exposure to urban green space and blue (water) space is linked to lower odds of having coronary artery calcification in middle age, which is an early marker of cardiovascular disease. The associations were more pronounced among Black individuals and those living in neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status, with the strongest effects observed in Black individuals in economically deprived neighborhoods. Specifically, Black participants with the highest accessibility to a river had 32% lower odds of coronary artery calcification compared to those with the lowest accessibility. Black participants with greater access to green spaces had up to 35% lower odds of calcification. For each 10%-point increase in green space, the odds of having coronary artery calcification decreased by 15% on average. The study was published today June 27 Circulation. Coronary artery calcification (CAC) is when calcium builds up in the plaque found in the walls of the coronary arteries. It can be a sign of early coronary artery disease, which can cause a heart attack. "The protective effect of having access to urban blue and green spaces with coronary artery calcification highlighted in our study underscore the potential benefits of such infrastructure, particularly for underserved populations at higher risk for cardiovascular disease," said corresponding author Dr. Lifang Hou, a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "Our findings provide quantitative evidence supporting environmental policies to enhance the accessibility and quality of residential blue and green spaces, which can promote public health benefit and address racial and neighborhood-related health disparities." Why do green and blue spaces improve health? "Having more green and blue spaces may provide increased opportunities for physical activities, social interactions, stress relief and restoration, all of which have been linked to improved metabolic and cardiovascular health," Hou said. "Additionally, exposure to green and blue spaces has been shown to boost people's immune system, reduce chronic inflammation and slow down the biological aging process, all of which are biologically important in people's overall health and cardiovascular health. More studies are needed to fully understand the role of urban natural environments in pathways related to human health." Conversely, the study also showed shorter distances to parks were associated with higher odds of CAC in these neighborhoods, with individuals having the highest park accessibility showing 29% higher odds of CAC compared to those with the lowest accessibility. "The poor condition of parks and/or safety concerns in underserved urban neighborhoods might deter park use and prevent residents from fully benefiting from these spaces," said study first author Kyeezu Kim, adjunct assistant professor of preventive medicine at Feinberg and assistant professor at Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine in South Korea. "From a public health perspective, the results suggest the need for quality control and management of the surrounding environment in neighborhoods with disadvantaged social determinants of health. More data is warranted to fully explain this observation." How the study was conducted The study included 2,960 Black and white men and women (average age of 50 years) from Birmingham, Ala., Chicago, Ill., Minneapolis, Minn., and Oakland, Calif., who were followed for 25 years (from 1985-1986 to 2010-2011). While proximity to urban blue and green spaces has been linked to better cardiovascular health, few studies have examined the role of social determinants of health, such as race and neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status in these associations, particularly with long-term observational data. Data for this study were drawn from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study, a multi-center prospective cohort study across four urban cities in the U.S. The CARDIA study began in 1985-1986 with 5,115 self-reported Black and white individuals in early adulthood (mean age 24.8). For blue and green spaces, researchers included percent blue space cover, distance to the nearest river, percent green space cover and distance to the nearest major park within 5 km of the participants' residential addresses. The presence of CAC was measured using a CT (computed tomography) scan when participants were about 50 years old. Researchers examined the associations between each blue and green space and CAC by race and neighborhood socioeconomic status. The CARDIA study is conducted and supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in collaboration with the University of Alabama at Birmingham grants HHSN268201800005I and HHSN268201800007I, Northwestern University grant HHSN268201800003I, University of Minnesota grant HHSN268201800006I and Kaiser Foundation Research Institute grant HHSN268201800004I. The research is also supported by NHLBI grant R01HL114091 and National Institute on Aging grant R01AG081244, all of the National Institutes of Health. It is also supported by the American Heart Association.

Yale New Haven Health unveils impact data during the 2024 Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM), showing Aidoc AI's ability to support the identification of commonly missed follow-up cases NEW YORK, June 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Coronary artery calcifications (CAC), aortic aneurysms (AA), brain aneurysms, and many other important findings are often missed or not routed for appropriate care due to various factors, including heavy caseloads and fragmented workflows. Studies have found that up to 56% of incidental CAC and 35% of incidental AAs go undetected or unreported1 2. Committed to leveraging AI for enhanced patient care, Aidoc has unveiled its latest advancements in AI-powered patient management. This innovative technology ensures that patients requiring follow-up for incidental or chronic conditions are accurately identified, captured and monitored, bridging critical gaps in healthcare delivery. Aidoc's groundbreaking aiOS™ platform harnesses imaging-based and text-based solutions to significantly enhance the identification and awareness of various medical conditions and connect patients to specialty clinics. This new patient management solution integrates seamlessly with electronic health records (EHR) and utilizes text-based AI to create a comprehensive view of each patient's health while pinpointing those who require follow-up care. "Aidoc's AI technology is a transformative force in patient management," said Elad Walach, CEO, Aidoc. "Our platform, with its diverse integrated solutions, doesn't just enhance diagnostic precision—it revolutionizes the entire follow-up process, ensuring no patient falls through the cracks. By integrating comprehensive data analysis with clinical insights, we empower healthcare providers to deliver timely and effective care, ultimately setting a new benchmark for patient outcomes and operational efficiency." Yale New Haven Hospital deployed Aidoc's AA patient management solution to enhance its aortic aneurysm management program. The results, presented at the Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM), were significant: clinic volume for follow-up nearly doubled, the time to intervention decreased from 270 days to 58 days, the number of interventions grew by 14%, and the aneurysm rupture rate reduced by 62% from 1.3% to 0.5%. "Aidoc's comprehensive patient management platform has transformed our approach to patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA)," said Edouard Aboian, MD, assistant professor of vascular surgery, Yale School of Medicine. "The integration of AI technology into our workflow has increased the number of AAA patients, improved long-term follow-up and greatly reduced the time to appointment and intervention. This technology has truly bridged the gap between radiologic findings and patient care, allowing us to provide timely and effective treatments." Aidoc's technology supports clinicians by identifying both anticipated and incidental suspected findings, contributing to workflow efficiencies and enabling clinicians with the information they need to deliver the right care at the right time. The addition of the patient management solution not only bridges the gap between radiologic findings and patient follow-up but also directs patients to the appropriate specialty clinics, optimizing care pathways and elevating the standard of healthcare delivery. Patients are automatically categorized and sorted by specific findings into relevant clinics, streamlining the workflow for specialists. For instance, AA patients are directed to vascular clinics, while brain aneurysm patients are directed to neurointerventional clinics. This systematic approach ensures that specialists' clinics are automatically populated with patients who need their expertise, enhancing the efficiency of healthcare delivery Aidoc's innovative approach to patient management represents a paradigm shift in healthcare technology. By ensuring no detail is overlooked and every patient receives the follow-up they need, Aidoc is setting a new standard in patient care and operational efficiency. This technology promises to reshape the landscape of medical diagnostics and patient management, making healthcare more proactive, precise and patient-centric than ever before. 1. Williams, K. A., Kim, J. T., & Holohan, K. M. (2013). Frequency of unrecognized, unreported, or underreported coronary artery and cardiovascular calcification on noncardiac chest CT. Journal of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, 7(3), 167–172. 2. Claridge, R., Arnold, S., Morrison, N., & Van Rij, A. M. (2017). Measuring abdominal aortic diameters in routine abdominal computed tomography scans and implications for abdominal aortic aneurysm screening. Journal of Vascular Surgery, 65(6), 1637–1642. About Aidoc Aidoc is a pioneering force in clinical AI. We focus on aiding and empowering healthcare teams to optimize patient treatment, which results in improved economic value and clinical outcomes. Our clinically proven AI solutions eliminate silos, increase efficiencies, and improve outcomes by delivering critical information when and where care teams need it leading to immediate collective action. Built on Aidoc's proprietary aiOS™, we analyze and aggregate medical data to enable care teams to operationalize the unexpected and work seamlessly with a continued focus on the patient. Used in more than 1,000 medical centers worldwide, Aidoc has the most FDA clearances (17) in clinical AI and its AI-based solutions cover 75 percent of patient populations, enabling physicians to make informed decisions based on real-time data. Aidoc AI is always on, running in the background to change the foreground. Visit Aidoc.com to see how we are connecting all points of care with always on AI. Logo - SOURCE Aidoc