| | | | |  | | By Toni Odejimi, Daniel Payne, Erin Schumaker and Ruth Reader | | | | | 
The ultrasounds of the future could be AI-powered. | Shutterstock | Artificial intelligence could help clinicians in rural areas get cheaper, more reliable ultrasound machines. According to a new study published in the journal JAMA Network Open, handheld, AI-programmed ultrasound devices helped clinicians correctly identify gestational age, or length of pregnancy, as well as traditional ultrasound devices did. Researchers looked at 400 people in North Carolina and Zambia who were in different stages of pregnancy, between July 2022 and April 2023. The AI algorithm was trained on data from patients with diverse socioeconomic, racial and health backgrounds, but the study didn’t include some more likey to have complications, such as those with obesity or whose fetuses had abnormalities. Clinicians were able to view the results in real time, using a tablet. By the numbers: Traditional ultrasound machines are expensive, with some high-end models costing more than $91,000. At $2,000, handheld devices are a fraction of the price, and because they're battery powered, they're a good option for areas with unreliable power, Dr. Jeffrey Stringer, study co-author and an obstetrician-gynecologist at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s School of Medicine, told Toni. Stringer's study builds on a larger effort to figure out how to bring AI to rural health practices. The researchers are also working on four other programs to diagnose high-risk medical situations, such as breech babies, which would help doctors know when to transfer patients to higher-level care facilities, Stringer said. In the future: AI could lighten clinicians’ workloads, though Stringer said health care workers would have to confirm the algorithm’s determinations. The researchers are working with the World Health Organization and the Zambian Ministry of Health on crafting policies to implement the technology, Stringer said. "It's a real step-by-step kind of process to build the confidence among the decision-makers and also among the patients and the clinicians that the technology might work."
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Copenhagen, Denmark | Shawn Zeller/POLITICO | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Mental health clinics are working harder to reach Latinos, whom surveys show are less likely to seek care, by hiring Latino providers and Spanish-speaking staff, according to NBC. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com, or Toni Odejimi at aodejimi@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp.
| | |  CPR training dummies usually look like white men. | Getty Images | Getting CPR from a bystander to restart a stopped heart — before emergency personnel arrive — increases chances of survival by 28 percent, on average, according to a new NIH-backed study in the journal Circulation. But the researchers found disparate results, suggesting a need for better training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation. How so? Men who got CPR from a bystander were twice as likely to survive as women. White people were three times more likely to survive than Black people. Black women had the worst survival chances of any group. Researchers looked at more than 600,000 cardiac arrest cases from 2013 to 2022. What's going on? Time and training fees may limit access to CPR training in marginalized communities, Dr. Paul Chan, co-author of the study and a cardiologist at St. Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City, told Toni. (He doesn't think racism is a factor, since more than 80 percent of bystander CPR cases happen in the home, with a friend or family member present.) Bystanders do worry about sexual harassment or hurting women, causing them to use incorrect CPR techniques. Training dummies tend to be male. “We can also normalize mannequins to represent all shades of colors and breast representations, so that when people are trained in CPR, they don't hesitate touching a body that has breasts. They don't hesitate touching a body or a mannequin that's not white,” Chan said.
| | | | DON’T MISS OUR AI & TECH SUMMIT: Join POLITICO’s AI & Tech Summit for exclusive interviews and conversations with senior tech leaders, lawmakers, officials and stakeholders about where the rising energy around global competition — and the sense of potential around AI and restoring American tech knowhow — is driving tech policy and investment. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | |  COVID deaths, mercifully, have declined. | Getty Images | The death rate in the U.S. dropped across age groups in 2023, according to provisional CDC data. The age-adjusted rate for the country in 2023, 750 deaths per 100,000, dropped more than 6 percent compared to the rate in 2022, 799 deaths per 100,000. The highest overall death rate coincided with the highest rate of Covid deaths, in early January and late December. But Covid’s direct impact on the number of deaths seems to be waning, at least by one metric: it fell to the 10th leading cause of death, well below its place, fourth, in 2022. Deaths were not evenly distributed throughout the population. Besides differences among age groups, men and Black people saw higher death rates than their peers. Even so: Mortality rates remain elevated compared to pre-pandemic figures. The 2018 and 2019 mortality rates were 724 and 715 per 100,000, respectively. Why it matters: Policymakers and public health officials have been watching the mortality rates closely since the pandemic began to understand the impact of Covid and its knock-on effects. The data has, for years, pointed to the biggest threats to the health of the U.S. population. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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