Lung damage & COVID-19 | AI & clinical notes | Cleveland Clinic Innovations

"Big breakthroughs happen when what is suddenly possible meets what is desperately needed." — Thomas Friedman, columnist for The New York Times

Today’s issue:

• Lung disease and mild COVID
• Test results in 15 seconds  
  
• Vaccine development takeaways
• COVID-19 and computer simulations
• AI and clinical notes
• The future of Cleveland Clinic Innovations 
• Gauging opioid risk in patients
• Faster extubation for heart patients
  

June 16, 2021

PANDEMIC INNOVATION

Image by Marta Ortiz for Shutterstock

Detecting long-haul COVID-19 damage

Polarean Imaging plc., located in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, published a study in which it used a drug-device combination to confirm lung damage in patients who had mild COVID-19 months after their hospital discharges. The company designs and manufactures equipment for production of hyperpolarized xenon or helium gas, which in conjunction with MRI, offer a non-invasive and precise imaging platform.

Test results in 15 seconds 

A Northwestern University spinoff has received $21.3 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to ramp up production of a COVID-19 testing device it developed that only takes 15 minutes to produce a result. Called DASH (Diagnostic Analyzer for Specific Hybridization), the device uses a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique that amplifies DNA, increasing incredibly small virus samples to detectable levels.

Vaccine development takeaways

Aaron Fisk, the general manager of St. Cloud, Minnesota's Microbiologics’ Virology division, talks with the Medical Alley Association about takeaways from the development process around COVID-19 vaccines and how this will affect future vaccine creation.

COVID-19 and computer simulations

Two Miami University studies shed light on COVID-19 interventions and vaccine efficacy. The studies used computer simulations to track the behavior of more than 500,000 virtual agents as they interacted with others in different contexts, like home work or community.

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PUDDLE HOPS: HEALTH TECH

Fast Future has followed medical and tech news around COVID-19 from the beginning of the pandemic. We’re adding coverage to this report related to health care innovation to feature more advances across Fast Future Country. 

• Realyze Intelligence is an artificial intelligence (AI) company that provides a clinical intelligence platform that “reads” the detailed clinical notes in patients’ EMRs. The platform can help clinicians pair patients with the treatment that is likely to benefit them most. The company was launched through UPMC Enterprises in Pittsburgh.
  
  

• D. Geoffrey Vince, Ph.D., the newly appointed executive director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations, discusses his top priorities, the initiatives he’s most excited about and why he thinks Cleveland is poised to be the place to go to for advancing healthcare discoveries via AI. 

   

• A nursing research committee at Duke University Hospital’s cardiothoracic intensive care unit has developed an approach for extubating heart patients within six hours after heart surgery. Doing so within the six-hour window helps lower adverse outcomes while shortening ICU stays and lowering costs.

• Indy-based OpalGenix has developed a clinical decision support platform to gauge opioid risk in patients. Each person responds to opioids differently based on genetics and clinical factors. The GPS-Opioid tool assesses each patient’s risk of opioid adverse effects and then personalizes opioid selection and dosing to maximize pain relief. 

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