‘Saving lives’: How AI is helping doctors better predict heart failure
Global News
Amidst the surging rates of heart failure across Canada, experts say the urgency for accurate prognostic tools has never been more needed.
Amidst the surging rates of heart failure across Canada, experts say the urgency for accurate prognostic tools has never been more needed. Yet, within this challenging landscape, promise is emerging from the realm of artificial intelligence (AI).
Researchers at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre in Toronto have unveiled SEATTLE HF, an AI system demonstrating precision in forecasting a patient’s heart health compared to physicians.
“We recognize that we are limited in how much information we can combine at once,” explained Dr. Carolina Alba, staff cardiologist at Peter Munk Cardiac Centre.
“Of course, (doctors) are very well trained and we have a lot of experience seeing thousands of patients with specific conditions, but we know that our brain is limited. Now we can rely on the use of predictive models.”
Alba told Global News that the goal of the AI tool is not to replace doctors, but only to assist them in making a better judgment for a patient, whether it involves recommending heart surgery, adjusting medication dosage or exploring alternative treatments.
“Right now we rely on family doctors’ judgments or our judgment to make these decisions. We know that we are a little bit off. So by having these models, I think that we can allocate resources much better and we can make sure that we can help everybody who would have the most benefit from this type of care,” she said.
Around 750,000 Canadians live with heart failure, a chronic condition caused by the heart not functioning as it should or a problem with its structure, according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation. And 100,000 are diagnosed with this incurable disease each year. It is also a growing problem not just in Canada, but across the world.
Although there is no cure for heart failure, early diagnosis and the right treatment plan can extend life expectancy and improve quality of life.
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