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A few years ago, three graduates of one of Israel’s most elite intelligence units came into Sheba’s ARC Innovation Center to say they wanted to help out in healthcare. Their expertise was in using artificial intelligence to read satellite photos.
They were told that a medical center has no need to read satellite photos but does have an enormous volume of CAT scans and other radiology outputs that could be analyzed. For instance, if someone comes into a busy ER with a splitting headache and might have a brain bleed when minutes are critical, their scan goes to the bottom of the pile to be read after the people with abdominal pain and shoulder injuries.
So, using millions of digitized scans Sheba has access to, anonymized without names, the three intelligence experts “taught” the computer, with what we now call AI, to read CAT scans. They were aided and coached by Sheba Medical Center’s immense clinical expertise.
When it became clear that the technology would be groundbreaking, Sheba’s ARC Innovation Center helped to form AIDOC – a company with a technology that can instantaneously read a CAT scan or MRI and “flag it” for the radiologist to make them aware that a brain bleed or hemorrhage or other time sensitive matter needs their attention. Now instead of going to the bottom of the pile, a scan with a condition where minutes matter is moved to the “top of the pile” to be diagnosed so the patient can be treated.
Sheba’s ARC Innovation Center took their medical and innovation experience, and access to digitized images, and helped three entirely non-medical IDF vets to create a cutting edge in medicine.
In the first alone year at Sheba, mortality in cases of brain bleeds was reduced by 30%. And the technology has now been licensed to over 1000 other hospitals, so the lives saved will be immense.
Soon the technology was expanded to stroke as well as lung and spinal injury. AIDOC was the first to receive the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval for the use of radiology AI for brain hemorrhages. And now the company has 13 FDA-cleared algorithms across various pathologies ranging from neuroscience to cardiovascular to a range of radiologic abnormalities.
Most likely we will never be able to count the lives saved and changed for the better.
Israeli drive, brains and inventiveness combined with Sheba Medical Center’s clinical expertise and blended with ARC Innovation Center’s mentorship and guidance means better healthcare for people around the world – and each of us.
