AITRICS, a Korea-based startup offering AI solutions which was founded in 2016, has signed a joint research agreement with Cleveland Clinic, a private, non-profit hospital health system based in Cleveland, Ohio. Both parties will collaborate on verifying VitalCare, AITRICS's AI platform that predicts critical events in hospitals.

WHY IT MATTERS

Sepsis is a disease that causes a systemic inflammatory response after infection from microbes, which has a high mortality rate to be selected as the leading cause of death globally. Early detection is the best because there is no underlying cure for sepsis. If sepsis treated within 1 hour after onset, the survival rate is 80%, but after 6 hours, it falls to 30%.

The challenge is that diagnosis can be tricky or misleading as the symptoms are too generic. To detect sepsis, doctors need to determine whether patients have an infection, but the results of the blood test will take at least two days, which is too late for intervention.

WHAT’S IT ABOUT

Both parties will start off by verifying the AI solution platform, VitalCare, an AI-based platform that significantly reduces the mortality rate of patients by timely detecting the occurrence of risk factors in a hospital through real-time monitoring of the patient's EMR. AITRICS verifies the accuracy of VitalCare and advances its AI model by utilizing datasets provided by Cleveland Clinic.

The two parties aim to cope better with patients during golden hour (the period of time following a traumatic injury during which there is the highest likelihood that prompt medical and surgical treatment will prevent death) and optimize resource management in hospitals through the solution.

FUTURE PLANS

AITRICS says it plans to expand VitalCare's predicted types of diseases and modality sequentially by verifying its AI models based on clinical data from the Cleveland Clinic. Also, the startup is expected to develop an AI model that takes into account various factors to build a solution for predicting severe deaths that is applicable to patients in multiple countries through collaborations with overseas hospitals.

THE LARGER TREND

Cleveland Clinic is establishing a research arm that will use data from multiple sources, including its EHR, to study emerging pathogens, HealthCare IT News reported. The Center for Global and Emerging Pathogens Research, which has been in the works for the past 1.5 years, will mine various data sources and then develop tools that can be used to predict risk and outcomes in patients.

ON THE RECORD

“In collaboration with Cleveland Clinic, one of the best hospitals in the United States, we have made a successful first in applying AI to clinical practice to create real value,” said Jinkyu Yoo, CEO and Co-founder of AITRICS. “It has been possible to improve the accuracy of VitalCare by verifying with top tier Hospitals in the US. Through this, we confirmed the possibility of medical AI solutions. We will expand to other fields based on certified technology to solve the problems prevalent in all parts of society.”