ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: SAVES VALUABLE TIME IN TREATING STROKE PATIENTS.

• Author: Hernandez, Tracy

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become part of our daily lives. As technology advances make it possible for machines to process large amounts of data, identify patterns, learn from experiences, adjust, and perform more human-like tasks, the impact of AI is becoming more profound. Nowhere is that more apparent than in health care.

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For Enya, a 33-year-old police officer who suffered a stroke last August, artificial intelligence technology from Viz.AI implemented at University of Utah Health and Davis Hospital may have been the difference between life and death.

To understand why Al represents such a big step in treating stroke patients, it's first important to understand what happens during a stroke. Enya suffered a large vessel occlusion (LVO) that led to an ischemic stroke. That means a large blood clot entered an artery in her brain and got stuck, blocking critical blood flow to brain tissues. Blood supplies the brain with vital oxygen and nutrients. With every passing minute that blood, oxygen, and nutrients were not flowing to her brain, about two million of Enya's neurons were dying.

"Tissues in the brain do not regenerate," says Ramesh Grandhi, MD, a University of Utah Health neurosurgeon and the doctor who performed Enya's surgery. "Once neurons die, your brain can try to compensate, but it cannot regrow what was lost."

That's why it is so important to recognize that a patient is having a stroke and call for help--campaigns like the F.A.S.T. method have helped with that--so doctors can understand exactly what kind of stroke the patient is experiencing and begin the correct treatment.

Treatment for ischemic strokes works well, but there are inherent delays in the conventional workflow. Before this technology, a patient arriving at Davis Hospital with signs of a stroke was taken for a CT angiogram (CTA), performed by a technician, who then sends the scan to a radiologist to diagnose and locate the dot. The radiologist, upon discovering the clot, is responsible for notifying the ER doctor, who then calls an interventional neurosurgeon to perform an emergency thrombectomy (a procedure to pull the clot out of the artery using a wire and catheter). Though everyone involved knows the importance of each passing minute for the patient and works as quickly as possible, delays are inevitable with this linear step-by-step process.

Enya's stroke occurred early in the morning. Her husband called 911 and Layton Fire Department quickly...