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NICO.LAB and AI Advance announced a new partnership that will revolutionise stroke care across Australia and New Zealand. AI Advance will be distributing StrokeViewer, an artificial intelligence solution that empowers physicians with the triaging, diagnosis and treatment decision making of patients in the emergency stroke setting.

StrokeViewer is a clinical-decision support tool that combines artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and a communication platform to help stroke experts make faster well-informed treatment decisions. StrokeViewer allows physicians to diagnose stroke patients remotely, on any mobile or desktop device. The secure cloud-based infrastructure of the solution makes implementation straightforward, requiring no additional hardware. Hospitals across Australia and New Zealand, including those with minimal infrastructure, can implement StrokeViewer and raise their standard of stroke care.

Jeroen Pex, Chief Commercial Officer at NICO.LAB: “AI Advance brings a long experience in the medical field and large network to the table, enabling NICO.LAB to hit the ground running in Australia and New Zealand. Their focus on AI solutions, makes them the right partner for us and for the hospitals and clinics in Australia and New Zealand.”

Peter Rady, Director and Co-Founder of AI Advance (Australia): “I am really excited to bring StrokeViewer to the Australian market. As a country we are leading with mobile stroke treatment which is attracting government investment to reduce the time to treatment of stroke patients. I am proud that StrokeViewer can further support this strategy.”

Stroke is a time-critical disease and third-biggest killer worldwide. During a stroke two million brain cells die every minute until blood flow is restored [1] therefore starting treatment earlier can make the difference between recovery or life-long disability. In Australia, every 19 minutes a patient suffers from a stroke. There are an estimated 450,000 stroke survivors living in the community, needing daily care[2]. Over half of all stroke survivors need some form of care. Besides the devastating effects on people’s lives, the economic burden in Australia in 2020 was over $6.2 billion[2].

The TGA and Medsafe cleared algorithms are embedded in a cloud-based infrastructure. Medical specialists are notified of the AI results on their smartphone within minutes of the patient being scanned. The physicians are then able to inspect the CT images via a certified diagnostic viewer and diagnose a patient remotely or at the hospital.

References:
[1]Saver, 2006 – “Time is brain—quantified.” Stroke 37.1 (2006): 263-266

NICO.LAB’s CEO, Dr. Merel Boers co-founded the company in 2015 following the groundbreaking MR CLEAN trial. The first Randomized Clinical Trial that proved the benefit of Endovascular Treatment which led to a paradigm shift in acute stroke care and triaging.

Merel is an ambitious and inspiring entrepreneur as well as an innovative researcher. At a very young age Merel is driving NICO.LAB to internationalisation and great success.

Merel gained a huge amount of knowledge through her PhD in stroke imaging that led her to obtaining one of the highest honours, summa cum laude, in her research at the University of Twente. During her PhD working at the Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, Merel and her research colleague, Renan Sales-Barros (co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of NICO.LAB) identified the opportunity and need to improve care for such a time critical disease.

Currently 20% of LVOs are initially undetected₁ and 40% of patients are treated too late₂.

At NICO.LAB we are working hard to ensure we help hospitals to reduce this % and streamline the workflow to reduce door to groin puncture time. It is extremely rewarding to read a paper with powerful numbers that actually quantifies the impact it has on a patient when just one minute is saved.

The main conclusion from the paper is that EVT administered 1 minute faster results in overall healthcare cost savings on average of €309 and 1.3 days of disability free life in the Netherlands. Those numbers for an hour faster treatment translate to €18, 540 euro and 80 days on average.

Click here to read the full paper from the MR CLEAN Registry titled Quantified health and cost effects of faster endovascular treatment for large vessel ischemic stroke patients in the Netherlands₃