In an experiment conducted by the start-up Cordio Medical among 180 patients in ten medical centers in Israel, the system identified heart failure events an average of 18 days before they occurred. The subjects sent one voice sample per day via smartphone, in Hebrew, Russian or Arabic. A total of 460 samples were collected
Company Cordio Medical Maor Yehuda, which developed and provides a platform for speech processing in the medical field, completed a trial in 10 medical centers in Israel of the HearO system it developed, which analyzes a sound sample from the patient's smartphone and allows a medical staff member to send an alert to the patient if worsening heart failure is detected.
The experiment was carried out in collaboration with the Beilinson, Barzilai, Galil hospitals, and the heart failure clinics of Kofah Klalit in the community, and 180 patients participated in it who used the application at home and sent one sample of their voice per day by sending sentences in Hebrew, Arabic or Russian. A total of 460,000 voice samples were collected in the experiment.
During the experiment, the system was able to successfully predict 82% of the first heart failure cases among the patients - 18 days on average before they occurred. This rate is orders of magnitude higher compared to predictions based on changes in the patient's weight that only succeed in predicting 10% to 20% of the cases. The trial's misdiagnosis rate is 18%, i.e. 2.5 false alarms per year, but a third of them are related to heart failure including other respiratory diseases such as pneumonia, flu, changes in urine and more.
Cordio has developed and provides a unique and groundbreaking solution that turns any smartphone into a medical standard device. The smartphone application runs sophisticated proprietary algorithms that enable early detection of fluid accumulation as a result of heart failure. The system receives a sample of the patient's voice from his smartphone and the HearO system, based on a cloud server, analyzes the results. If she discovers worsening heart failure, a medical staff member sends an alert to the patient with instructions to take diuretics in the appropriate dose for their condition.
During the development of HearO, Cordio registered many patents. The solution received approval from the Ministry of Health in Israel and CE approval from the European Union, following which the company will conduct pilots in various European countries. The company also received FDA approval as a breakthrough product and is expected to receive FDA approval at the end of 2023.
According to Dr. Ronit Habib, VP of Clinical and Regulation Cordio Medical: "The results of the experiment indicate our potential to become a standard in the early detection of heart failure. The solution is easy and convenient to use by any patient, even the oldest, and its proven accuracy makes it a medical standard solution. These capabilities allow for remote monitoring, and the provision of real-time prescriptions for taking diuretics that will stabilize the state of fluids in the patient's body."
Tamir Tal, CEO of Cordio Medical: "Insufficiency is a global epidemic that affects between 2-4% of the population, including in Israel. In the US alone there are one million hospitalizations per year among the 6 million heart failure patients diagnosed each year and the total annual cost of hospitalizations reaches 40 billion dollars, more than the hospitalization costs of all cancer patients. Most heart failure patients do not have a solution that helps them monitor the fluid balance in the body. The HearO system we developed will enable remote treatment of these patients and will dramatically reduce the number of hospitalizations and costs. The system, which is cheap and easy to distribute, will improve the patients' quality of life, extend their life expectancy and reduce direct mortality from the chronic disease."
"Cordio's HearO system appears to be a solution that will significantly help both the heart failure patients themselves and the health systems required to manage their treatments," said Dr. Tovia Ben Gal, director of the heart failure unit in the cardiology department at Beilinson Hospital. "Implementation of the system will make it possible to reduce the considerable burdens in the clinics and allow doctors to focus on those patients who need treatment. The large number of patients we were able to recruit for the trial we conducted with Cordio allowed us to demonstrate the great potential embodied by the HearO system."
Cordio recently completed a fundraising round of $18 million. The company, which began its journey in the Incentiv incubator in Ariel, currently employs 26 people in Or Yehuda and the USA. The company was established by Prof. Haim Lotan together with the venture capital fund Peregrine following a demand identified by Peregrine, for an easy-to-use solution that would enable monitoring of heart failure patients - the most common chronic disease in the world. Peregrine supports the company from its inception at the strategic, financial and operational level.
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