Ownership: Minority
Self reported impact: Potential a year or so down the line.
One sentence summary:
Our product, ECGio, removes subjectivity from the evaluation of chest pain patients in the emergency department; current evaluation methods statistically under-test and under-treat people of color.
Description of impact:
The unfortunate state of cardiovascular care is that most people don’t know they are at risk of having a heart attack until they already have had one. This problem is amplified by racial and socioeconomic inequities in how we diagnose and treat cardiovascular disease (CVD). Despite black men having a lower risk of CVD, they have a higher mortality rate, and when they go to the emergency room (ER), they will receive less tests, less care, and have poorer outcomes. The root of this problem is that ER assessments are long, complicated, and subjective; there is no one test to tell if a patient is suffering from a life-threatening cardiac event. Instead, physicians must order multiple tests over a period of hours and use their best judgement about whether or not to admit and treat the patient. In practice, this results in systemic inequities across racial and socioeconomic lines.
Our product addresses these systemic inequities by offering one objective test that definitively determines a patient’s need for care. Our product”ECGio is a quick, accurate method to screen patients for life-threatening cardiac events as soon as they enter the ER. We empower the most used, non-invasive cardiac test (the electrocardiogram of ECG) with a robust AI solution to determine if the patient requires care or can be safely discharged. In order to make sure that ECGio is safe, effective, and doesn’t perpetuate inequities entrenched in current ER practice, we will not be available until late 2022.