AI is making rapid inroads into institutional healthcare settings, but a new partnership is aiming to make AI-enabled diagnosis a reality on the road, as well.

Fujifilm SonoSite and Boston-based Partners HealthCare, which is anchored by Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals, have announced their decision to team up to boost the diagnostic powers of point-of-care ultrasound.

According to a statement, “the two organizations will collaborate to enhance ultrasound technology with AI to enable clinicians to perform scans at the point-of-care, further expanding the accessibility of this technology for clinicians and their patients. The collaboration will be executed through the MGH & BWH Center for Clinical Data Science and leverage the extensive data assets, computational infrastructure and clinical expertise of the Partners HealthCare system.”

Complex ER procedures will comprise the first set of goals the combined teams will set out to achieve, according to the announcement.

“Allowing for even greater integration of ultrasound into our healthcare delivery system requires smarter machines,” said Keith Dreyer, Chief Data Science Officer for Partners HealthCare. “In emergency settings, the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of portable ultrasound makes it a critical companion to other imaging modalities.” 

Andrew Liteplo, MD, of MGH’s department of emergency medicine, pointed out that “If we build scanners that can be used by non-expert users both inside and outside the hospital, we can likely reduce the time delay between trauma and diagnosis, which will translate to more rapid interventions and improved outcomes.” 

As an important diagnostic tool in the fields of obstetrics and emergency medicine, increased accessibility to, and utilization of, point-of-care ultrasound holds substantial promise, both parties noted, adding that high fidelity, affordable medical imaging could have an impact on a global scale, particularly in the developing world, where access to care is a fundamental challenge.

Fujifilm SonoSite’s chief medical officer, Diku Mandavia, MD, explained that the partnership’s primary aim is embedding AI in POCUS (Point-of-Care Ultrasound) so that sonogram findings can be automatically computed at the site of the scan.

Such automation, Mandavia said, “will allow us to increase the accessibility of this critical technology while still delivering high diagnostic value.”