Israeli Scientists use AI to revolutionise the ECG

The largest cause of death globally is cardiovascular disease, according to the World Health Organisation, almost 18 million individuals pass away as a result of heart attacks, strokes and other related conditions. These diseases all link to the heart’s ability to achieve its main job, which is transporting blood around the human body.
For more than a century, ECG’s (the electrocardiogram) have been used as the easiest and most effective method of checking human heart health.
The electrocardiogram means doctor can get an idea of a patient’s health, not only displaying the rhythm of the heartbeat, but also any potential problems including accumulation of fatty materials or thickening of the heart walls.
While this is great, a doctor having a look at the graph may miss important signs or misinterpret the information. Israeli scientists are in the middle of finding viable solutions to this problem, by using Artificial Intelligence.
At the minute, a doctor would look at an ECG and compare the graph with a ‘normal’ result to assess if there are issues. However, the scientists is Israel have a more modern approach. They used over 1.5 million previously conducted ECG tests from patients worldwide into one network, meaning patterns an d trends could be easily identified and presented in a new graph.
So rather than one person with opportunity for error checking the ECG, AI programming can be used to compare and contrast that graph against the thousands of previous samples on the database.
As well as eradicating the risk of human error, the new system can also predict the likelihood of health issues that aren’t revealed in the ECG.
Chief Executive Officer of Technion UK Alan Aziz said “Your cardiovascular system is literally at the heart of your health, so having the most accurate ECG possible is a must. Thanks to Technion expertise, Dr AI will now be able to give you a second opinion on the tell-tale heart.”