Leveraging AI, Digital Auscultation, to Streamline Cardiovascular Diagnoses

In part 1 of this interview, Antoine Keller, MD, FACC, FACS, cardiothoracic surgeon, Ochsner Lafayette General Hospital, and founder of HeartSense discussed his experiences as a cardiac surgeon that ultimately led to the organization’s founding. Of particular concern to him were the disproportionately high rates of heart disease impacting rural African American and Hispanic communities, and an insufficient amount of data to explain this incidence.

Here, Keller speaks more to the impact of advancing technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and digital auscultation, for streamlining medical diagnoses, which, in turn, enhances patient care and outcomes in communities that may lack sufficient medical resources.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarify; captions were auto-generated.

Transcript

How are you integrating digital auscultation and AI into screenings for heart disease, and what impact have these technologies had on early detection and patient outcomes?

It's a really good question, because the implementation of our paradigm has really been aimed at trying to figure out ways in which we can provide actionable diagnosis for people in areas in which there is a dearth of medical expertise and talent and technology. So we have tried to lean on and leverage this artificial intelligence technology that allows us to be able to obtain actionable information without having a physician present—or even a nurse practitioner present—and be able to direct people to people that have this expertise in a timely fashion. And time is certainly of the essence, because once people develop severe disease, and certainly symptomatic disease, the clock is ticking to their demise. Either they're going to develop heart failure that is unrelenting and unresponsive to medical management, or they're going to die. So, it's really important for us to be able to find ways in which we can get in front of large volumes of people and start the ball rolling towards their diagnosis and treatment.

One of the most impressive things about the paradigm that we have established is that you could have a janitor at a school place the device on a patient's chest and obtain some actionable information that can direct them to someone who has expertise. And this does a number of things, not the least of which is that it gives this person some confidence that they actually have something wrong, and they can take a day off work, or find someone to watch their kids, or take 3 or 4 busses to see a doctor and know that they're not just going to be doing that for in vain. But it also allows the practitioners to be able to ensure that people who come to them actually have something that they need to be treated for or investigated.

This good for the specialists, like cardiologists, which we don't have enough cardiologists in these areas. So if we can ensure the cardiologist that the people who are coming to them actually have something that needs a cardiologist, it makes the cardiology workflow more efficient and allows the cardiologist to be able to see more people that actually need the cardiologist, instead of seeing a bunch of people who may have something that is not necessarily dependent upon a cardiologist to treat. It really is a great thing for hospital systems because it calls out those people who could normally go to see someone else, perhaps a primary care doctor, and focuses on the people who need specialists with the specialist. We think it is a win-win for the patients, and certainly a win-win for the hospital system, because it allows a much more efficient workflow of patients.