Professor Bryan Williams
Chief Scientific and Medical Officer, British Heart Foundation
By harnessing artificial intelligence (AI), research is breaking new ground, finding new ways to diagnose, treat and care for those with heart conditions.
Medical technology is rapidly evolving, and AI innovations continue to drive advances in risk stratification and the better detection and treatment of cardiovascular disease.
Two new research studies funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) have embraced the power of NHS data to generate AI algorithms that have the potential to improve care for heart patients.
AI to accelerate clinical decisions
The first study — led by Dario Sesia, a BHF-supported PhD student at Imperial College London — developed a new AI tool that could help tens of thousands avoid unnecessary hospital stays each year in the UK. In the study of over 33,000 UK patients, their AI tool — Rapid-RO — successfully ruled out heart attacks in over a third of patients.
Rapidly ruling out heart attacks in those attending A&E could have a huge impact, allowing people to be reassured and safely sent home from hospital. Promising technology like this could help accelerate clinical decision-making and help people avoid unnecessary hospital admissions, as well as allow valuable NHS time and resources to be redirected to where it could have the greatest benefit.
Over 1 million people in the UK are affected by heart failure.
Identifying heart failure risk
Another study, led by Professor Chris Gale at the University of Leeds has used machine learning to spot people at risk of heart failure earlier.
The new tool — FIND-HF — identifies tell-tale patterns in individuals’ GP records to spot those at highest risk of developing heart failure. The team found that FIND-HF could accurately predict who was at highest risk of developing heart failure and who would consequently be hospitalised in the next five years.
Over 1 million people in the UK are affected by heart failure. In the future, tools like this could be instrumental in helping spot some of the 200,000 new heart failure cases that are diagnosed every year in the UK. Earlier diagnosis could help many patients start treatments sooner — when heart failure symptoms can be managed more effectively and its progress can be slowed.
Advancing tools to mitigate heart diseases
Pioneering technologies funded by donations to the BHF have the potential to save and improve thousands of lives across the UK and globally. It’s only with funding that we can continue to drive forward new tools and treatments for heart and circulatory diseases, helping us achieve our mission to beat heartbreak forever.
