Neurosurgeon Dr. Paul Saphier on the warning signs to look for. I am a neurosurgeon who specializes in the treatment of acute strokes, brain bleeds, and tumors. Every second counts for my patients, and I am determined to help as many as I can. This Thanksgiving dinner, I left my family to operate on a patient with a life-threatening stroke. This is what you need to know about strokes and how artificial intelligence is helping surgeons like me save even more patients.

Tens of thousands of stroke patients across the country are benefitting from quicker treatment and improved outcomes thanks to government investment in cutting edge artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose and determine the best treatment for patients who suffer a stroke. Early-stage analysis of the technology, which received funding from the first round of the government's AI in Health and Care Awards, shows it can reduce the time between presenting with a stroke and treatment by more than 60 minutes, and is associated with a tripling in the number of stroke patients recovering with no or only slight disability - defined as achieving functional independence - from 16% to 48%. Trailblazing AI technologies are revolutionising the health and care system making it fit for the future. These ground-breaking diagnosis and treatment tools are not only helping improve patient outcomes, but freeing up valuable clinician time, supporting hard working NHS staff who are working tirelessly to tackle the COVID backlogs. AI has the potential to transform our NHS - delivering faster, more accurate diagnoses and making sure patients can get the treatment they need, when they need it.

The AI-powered medtech solutions company, Brainomix, has been awarded the national tender in Hungary to deploy its AI stroke imaging software across all stroke centers in Hungary as part of the National Institute for Health Development initiative to improve stroke care. Awarded following a competitive process, the 5-year program is funded under the EU4Health programme and is the first time that a single stroke AI imaging platform will be deployed across an entire country. This latest tender will build upon an earlier EU grant that had funded the installation of Brainomix's flagship e-Stroke platform in 10 hospitals in and around the Hungarian city of Pécs. It will enable e-Stroke to be deployed across the remaining 28 stroke centres in Hungary's national healthcare system, with the support of eRAD, who will be serving as a technological partner. The initiative to use AI to improve stroke care and patient outcomes for the benefit of all stroke patients in Hungary was driven by world leading neuroscientist, Prof Dr István Szikora of the National Institute of Mental Health, Neurology and Neurosurgery, (OMIII) in Budapest, which will serve as the national stroke centre with full oversight for the program.

Smartphone applications utilizing AI, meanwhile, helps providers easily communicate, and can send out alerts with detailed image findings within minutes of of a scan being completed. These results can be accessed anywhere from a mobile device, expediting diagnosis to treatment times like never before. However, the authors noted that depending on AI as a standalone reader inevitably results in medical errors, which has bred skepticism among many in the imaging community, as those medical errors can be life-threatening for patients. "It is important to understand the intended clinical use of the technology," the doctors explained. "The best use case scenario is not autonomous AI, but rather AI partnered with human supervision."

Baylor St. Luke's Is First in Houston To Adopt Artificial Intelligence for Stroke Care As one of the leaders in stroke care in Houston and the surrounding areas, Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center continues on its promise to leverage the most advanced innovations to provide the best care to its patients. Baylor St. Luke's invested in artificial intelligence technology to service the stroke care team in diagnosing stroke and providing efficient and reliable treatment. Viz.ai technology allows for rapid detection and notification of suspected large vessel occlusion (LVO) strokes. Chethan P Venkatasubba Rao, Medical Director of the Neuroscience ICU at Baylor St. Luke's With Stroke, Timing Is Everything During a stroke, timing is the most important factor for minimizing brain damage. Knowing the signs of a stroke will allow for F.A.S.T. action in the event of an emergency.

PHOENIX – Banner Health is implementing applied artificial intelligence technology that will help doctors quickly treat patients suffering from a stroke. Arizona's largest hospital network has partnered with Viz.ai, which is an FDA-cleared computer-aided triage system that cuts down the time doctors use to look over imaging. "Every second someone is having a stroke, we estimate 32 thousand brain cells are dying," Dr. Jeremy Payne, Director of the Stroke Center at Banner University Medical Center Phoenix, told KTAR 92.3 FM Tuesday. It notifies doctors "where a stroke is happening, how much damage has been done and how much tissue is still salvageable before the patient has left the CT scanner," Payne said. Images and notifications are also sent directly to a doctor's phone, making it easier and faster for doctors to make lifesaving decisions.

Every 30 minutes a stroke patient who could have been saved dies or is permanently disabled, in many cases because they were treated in the wrong hospital. In Europe, only about a third of stroke patients have access to the organised stroke care they need to survive a stroke with minimal or no disability. Stroke treatment is particularly time-sensitive. The so-called door-to-therapy (D2T) time describes the time interval between a patient arriving at the hospital and the initiation of their therapy. D2T time is critical for patient outcomes: on average, each single minute saved adds two days of healthy life and every 15 minutes saved adds one extra month of disability-free life.

Startups from around the world are innovating in the ways artificial intelligence can be brought to bear in the healthcare space, with clinical, financial and operational applications, as evidenced by new launches from two AI companies with roots in Israel. This week, Netanya-based CLEW Medical, launched its predictive analytics platform, which crunches real-time data with machine learning technology to drive quality and safety improvement and help control costs. The company, formerly known as Intensix, said the AI platform can help health systems prevent life-threatening complications across settings. It's been deployed in intensive care units already, and CLEW aims to expand the technology's applications, giving staff insights to help streamline medical care. Officials pointed out that inpatients often come with some 300 unique data elements to be tracked, some measured every few milliseconds.

MedyMatch Technology, a startup from Israel that specializes in medical imaging analysis for emergency medicine, has its first U.S. hospital partner. Capital Health, a two-hospital system in New Jersey, will deploy MedyMatch's artificial intelligence-based analytics in the emergency department and help the Tel Aviv-based vendor develop a clinical decision support tool for stroke care. To accomplish the latter, Capital Health, based in Hopewell Township, New Jersey, has agreed to provide MedyMatch with anonymized data from patients, the organizations said Monday. "The data Capital Health will provide will allow us to move closer to providing this decision support tool which can help ensure appropriate diagnosis, critical for treatment," MedyMatch Chairman and CEO Gene Saragnese said in a prepared statement. Saragnese was CEO of Philips Imaging before joining the startup a year ago.