Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and Philips North America have been awarded a research grant from the Department of Defense’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) program to develop applications for handheld ultrasound devices that can improve point of care diagnosis. As an OHSU subcontractor, CNTR’s involvement includes hiring and managing a research professional to operationalize the work, who will be on-site at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research.
Handheld ultrasound devices are already being used by first responders, EMS medics and other health professionals when triaging patients during mass casualty events; but new applications enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) show promise to speed up acquisition, reading and interpreting images accurately, saving lives. Internal injuries, such as lung injury, are particularly difficult to diagnose, especially among multiple casualties during chaotic events such as earthquakes, bombings or mass shootings, multi-vehicle crashes, and in COVID-19 pandemic hot zones.
Philips will lead the development of the AI-based ultrasound program, including advanced software for its Lumify device that could expand its user base to non-physician emergency medical service providers. OHSU will conduct multi-center clinical studies to acquire ultrasound images of participants with smoke-inhalation lung injuries from fires, COVID-19 lung disease, and traumatic abdominal and extremity injuries. OHSU imaging and AI experts will interpret images and electronically explain the images for machine learning and algorithm development.
“The OHSU and Philips collaboration focuses on the development of machine learning algorithms for the Lumify handheld ultrasound solution to detect COVID-19 lung injury, smoke inhalation lung injury, trauma-based abdominal bleeding, and severe extremity injury,” reports Casey Williamson in an OHSU article about the project.
“The system has broad application not only for mass casualty events, but also for routine health care delivery in the U.S., especially as a cornerstone diagnostic tool for rural primary care medicine, and globally in locations where chest X-ray and computerized tomography (CT) devices and expert physicians for image interpretation are not readily available.”
