Cardio.AI

• Price tag on cardiovascular disease in Europe higher than entire EU budget

• Lack of methods for early diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases

It is widely acknowledged that cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of global mortality and  CVD had a significant impact on the EU27 economy, costing a total of €282 billion in 2021.. The primary reason for this could be in the lack of early detection of heart conditions. When patients seek cardiologists with complaints, it often indicates a chronic stage, where cardiovascular diseases are not curable but only managed pharmaceutically. This not only increases the financial burden on healthcare systems and specialists but also significantly diminishes the quality of life for individuals. 

Presently, there is no accessible, mass diagnostic method for early-stage cardiovascular diseases. Current preventive measures involve short ECGs during doctor visits and general lifestyle recommendations, proving to be relatively ineffective. The only way to detect arrhythmias in the early stages is through prolonged (5 days or more) Holter monitor ECG monitoring. 

Furthermore, early detection and treatment can also reduce healthcare costs associated with treating advanced stages of heart diseases. By diagnosing and treating heart diseases at an early stage, patients may need fewer hospitalizations, surgeries, and other costly interventions. This can free up resources to provide more effective and efficient healthcare services, benefiting society as a whole.

Overall, affordable and high-quality diagnostics of heart diseases at the earliest stages can have a positive impact on individuals' health and wellbeing, as well as the wider society, by reducing the burden of heart diseases and associated healthcare costs.

Cardio.AI offers a service and software-hardware complex that uses artificial intelligence for remote diagnosis of arrhythmias and other abnormalities of the cardiovascular system. The complex utilizes disposable biosensors. These biosensors can be used in two modes: as a disposable Holter with a monitoring period of up to 7 days, or as a real-time ECG monitor.

The full-cycle service based on the complex includes further decoding of the entire ECG record, verification by cardiologists, and provision of a report on the events that occurred to the doctor, including further access to the entire signal and report in the Cardio.AI. In the ECG monitor mode, doctors can monitor the activity of the heart through an Android-based tablet in real-time. If there is an internet connection, the data is simultaneously sent for analysis to the Cardio.AI cloud-based data processing system based on artificial intelligence, which automatically notifies doctors about all detected abnormalities.

Cardio.AI solves this problem by introducing the AI pre-processing pipeline as the first step before the technician even attends the record. This mostly eliminates the human factor, improvingthe ability to spot arrhythmia or conduction issues. This particular AI separates sinus beats from everything else with very high accuracy, more than 95% in presence of the noise.

Cardio.AI's mission to increase access to health services through affordable remote medical-grade cardiac diagnostics is particularly important in the context of global health disparities and underserved or underrepresented communities. Today, more and more people live without access to quality medical services due to various factors, including conflicts, disasters, and pandemics. For example, the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the global need for remote monitoring solutions, and many countries have shifted towards a remote model of healthcare delivery. In Ukraine, where Cardio.AI is located, hundreds of thousands of people live with significant infrastructure damage and have access only to emergency medical care. In addition, refugees in different countries also have limited access to diagnostic services, which puts them at even greater risk of preventable illness, disability, and mortality.

By providing an affordable mass service for diagnosing CVD, Cardio.AI has the potential to prevent serious CVD by enabling early detection and intervention. Early heart disease is easily treated and controlled, which can save lives and improve health outcomes. Moreover, by saving administrative time and reducing healthcare costs, Cardio.AI can create more equitable access to high-quality health services for underserved communities. The use of remote cardiac diagnostic services can also help overcome distance barriers and enable patients to consult with cardiac diagnostic services practically anywhere in the world. In this way, Cardio.AI can help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing by supporting more equitable, sustainable, and inclusive recovery efforts.

Our social impact policy aims to provide a preventive heart disease service at the earliest stages when conditions can be treated, preventing progression into chronic stages. This approach not only reduces the financial burden on the healthcare system but also improves the overall quality of life for individuals.

Cardio.AI team is actively involved in Ukraine, focusing on activities related to cardiovascular disease patients and implementing prevention measures to combat these conditions. We possess a high level of expertise in Deep Learning and other artificial intelligence approaches, constantly striving to further develop our skills and knowledge in these areas. Our founder, Maksym Diachenko, leads a team that has been dedicated to advancing natural language processing technology, developing prototypes for an open vocabulary neural translation system, and creating a speech recognition system. 

Our team consists of 14 members, including data scientists, engineers, and cardiologists. Since 2016, our core team has been working collaboratively, successfully delivering solutions such as ASR and OCR, as well as our proprietary Cardio.AI®️ technology. With the guidance of practicing cardiologists, who have been collaborating with us for over 4 years, we ensure that every step we take is thoroughly evaluated. Their profound understanding of modern cardiology issues enables us to work closely together to find effective solutions.

The team is located in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Our journey began with a 3-year focus on developing a neural network capable of expert-level ECG analysis. Recognizing our superior results, we transitioned into a business mindset, investing an additional couple of years in interface refinement for seamless medical integration. Financed by multiple investors, our team in Kyiv now comprises 15 full-time employees.

Currently, we are in the process of obtaining European medical certification. Amidst the invasion, we supported the Hospitaller medical battalion with our vital signs monitoring system during evacuations. Securing grants totaling 75K euros from the Ukrainian Startup Fund and Eat Health last year, we remain committed to our mission.

In 2021, our licensed company initiated cardiological check-ups in Ukraine, generating income and extending services to clients in India and the USA. Our revenue stream marks a significant milestone in the development and sustainability of our social enterprise.

Cardio.AI is committed to overcoming several barriers in our mission to revolutionize cardiac diagnostics. Financially, we encounter challenges in securing resources for research and development and obtaining regulatory certifications like FDA clearance and European CE Mark certification. Additionally, optimizing our AI algorithms for real-time analysis and ensuring seamless integration with existing healthcare systems pose technical hurdles.

Navigating complex regulatory frameworks in different regions presents legal challenges, necessitating expertise in compliance and intellectual property protection. Culturally, addressing diverse patient needs and preferences, especially in underserved communities, requires sensitive approaches to healthcare delivery and communication.

Market barriers include competition from established players and reluctance from healthcare providers to adopt new technologies. Solve can play a pivotal role in connecting us with partners who can provide both monetary and non-monetary support to overcome these barriers.

Monetary support can help secure additional funding for research and development, while non-monetary support, such as expertise in regulatory affairs and market entry strategies, can assist in navigating legal and market barriers. Solve's network of partners can also help establish collaborations with healthcare providers and community organizations to address cultural barriers and ensure widespread adoption of our solution.

By leveraging Solve's resources and expertise, we aim to bring Cardio.AI's innovative cardiac diagnostic solutions to underserved communities worldwide, improving access to quality healthcare and saving lives.

Today there is no way to diagnose heart disease at an early stage, which can be used as a mass screening. Our technology radically solves the problem with the most difficult aspect in diagnosing heart disease - the analysis of long-term electrocardiograms. We propose an AI-assisted approach, when the doctor only needs to verify the results after an AI prepass. This significantly reduces time and will allow more preventive tests to be carried out, and not just tests for therapeutic purposes, when there is definitely a serious heart disease.

Cardio.AI's solution is innovative and unique due to our time-saving approach. By leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) technology, our platform allows ECG technicians to verify results after AI preprocessing, eliminating the need to manually sift through raw ECG signals on traditional software. This significantly speeds up the process, enabling technicians to clean 6-8 long-term ECG records per hour, making their job easier and more efficient. Additionally, our solution provides the deepest and most accurate ECG analytics in the market, setting it apart as a cutting-edge solution for cardiovascular diagnostics.

Our AI model uses deep learning to predict about 80 arrhythmia classes for the technician to start working with. Our software then further automates other routine tasks, allowing technicians to focus on patient’s problems and case solving instead of monotonic labor they used to perform. Our ambition is to keep the average time spent per patient to under 5 minutes and we are already pretty close to it. That will open a wide range of possibilities for multi-day monitoring because you could screen a much larger population compared to other solutions on the market.

The main difference between the software we've developed against the softwares on the market. We create software that is good in editing, we are not about manual markup. For this paradigm to work you need a strong AI, capable of solving any kind of ECG event, thus we have this large amount of detected classes. 

Most of the competition we’ve seen so far focus on screening assistance for technicians. In contrast, we work on the complete elimination of manual processing.

15 full-time

7

At Cardio.AI, diversity and inclusion are integral to our workplace culture. We prioritize diversity from the outset by actively seeking candidates from various backgrounds and underrepresented groups through diverse recruitment channels and partnerships. Once hired, we foster an inclusive environment where every team member feels valued and empowered to contribute their unique perspectives. Ongoing diversity and inclusion training, along with clear policies against discrimination and harassment, ensure a respectful workplace.

We are committed to accommodating the needs of team members with disabilities by providing accessible workspaces and technologies, and engaging in regular dialogue to address any barriers they may encounter. Additionally, we provide opportunities for individuals who may be temporarily displaced, such as refugees, by offering meaningful employment and support.

Our dedication to diversity and inclusion is fundamental to our organizational culture and practices. By embracing diversity, we not only create opportunities for individual growth and success but also strengthen our ability to drive innovation and achieve our mission of advancing healthcare through technology.