Saving lives in the ICU through artificial intelligence

Two years ago, Gal Salomon’s mother developed sepsis during a stay in the hospital. “It was a big hospital with a lot of patients and no one saw or understood it was happening,” Salomon recalls bitterly. “We lost her after two days.” So when Salomon, then a partner at Israeli venture capital firm Pitango, was introduced to Clew Medical, he knew immediately that he had to get involved. Clew develops software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to predict which patients in a hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) are at the highest risk of imminent deterioration, and it alerts staff so they can intervene early.

Hospitals today run according to evidence-based medicine, explains Salomon, who is now Clew’s CEO. That makes for smart science. But for critical care, it can be a problem. “You need to make sure something is happening 100 percent before you take action,” Salomon tells ISRAEL21c. A patient may appear normal, “but if you had a sign that, in two to three hours, that patient will need a major intervention, if you don’t do it now, you are already too late. The biggest problem in the ICU is that we don’t respond in time.” Clew’s software connects to the ICU’s systems – for example, those that track blood pressure and heart rate – and pairs it with data from a patient’s electronic medical record. Clew then adds a third element – the cloud. Using AI, Clew can match a patient’s history and current vital signs with knowledge from thousands of other patients in similar situations to predict the patient’s trajectory more accurately than an overworked doctor or nurse can. For example, Clew can identify the patients who are most likely to become unstable, along with the source and kind of deterioration they may encounter. It can predict how long a patient will need to be connected to a ventilator or a dialysis machine, and when a patient will be ready to be discharged. -- More...

ISRAEL21c——Bio and Archives

ISRAEL21c was founded in 2001, in the wake of the Second Intifada, to broaden public understanding of Israel beyond typical portrayals in the mainstream media.

The organization’s founders – Israeli-American technology executives – understood the great power of the Internet and developed a first-of-its kind online product with global appeal and reach.