Caption Health Receives Grant to Develop AI-Guided Lung Ultrasound
The $4.95 million grant from the Bill + Melinda Gates Foundation will enable the company to further develop its AI technology to include lung ultrasounds that can be performed by even inexperienced healthcare providers, perhaps making a difference in triaging COVID-19 patients.
November 30, 2020
“Because of the pandemic, hospitals are seeing an increase in patients with issues around the heart and the lungs,” said Kilian Koepsell, CTO and cofounder of Caption Health, in an interview with MD+DI. “Both of them are very important, and lung ultrasound in particular plays a critical role in triaging the patient to assess the severity of what's going on and then monitoring them throughout the disease and recovery.”
Koepsell said that the severity of COVID-19 can be reflected in the degree of pulmonary involvement, which can be seen on a lung ultrasound on exam. “When the patient arrives in the emergency department with suspicion of COVID-19, the lung ultrasound can be used for early detection, and it has been shown to be more reliable than a chest x-ray, for example,” he said.
But, clinicians who are well trained in ultrasound are not always available, especially during the current pandemic. The AI-guided lung ultrasound that Caption Health is developing could enable even inexperienced clinicians to perform a useful examination to assess different conditions.