Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center is the First to Bring Applied Artificial Intelligence to Stroke Care in Greater Houston

HOUSTON (September 23, 2020) – As a leader in stroke care, Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center (Baylor St. Luke’s) has partnered with Viz.ai to bring the first FDA-cleared computer-aided triage system in the Greater Houston area. Baylor St. Luke’s is the first in the Greater Houston area to partner with Viz.ai to bring its award-winning software that utilizes artificial intelligence to analyze images for suspected large vessel occlusion (LVO) strokes.

As one of the leaders in stroke care in Houston and surrounding areas, Baylor St. Luke’s continues its commitment to leverage the most advanced innovations to improve access to the most optimal treatments for patients who are suffering an acute stroke. Viz.ai solutions will allow Baylor St. Luke’s to further enhance the power of its stroke care team through rapid detection and notification of suspected LVO strokes and allow stroke specialists to securely communicate to synchronize care and determine the optimal patient treatment decision.

Stroke specialists with access to Viz.ai’s technology can potentially save critical minutes, even hours, in the triage, diagnosis and treatment of strokes. Combining groundbreaking applied artificial intelligence with seamless communication, Viz.ai's image analysis facilitates the fast and accurate triage of suspected LVOs in stroke patients and better collaboration between clinicians at comprehensive and referral hospitals. Viz.ai synchronizes care across the whole care team, enabling a new era of "Synchronized Care", where the right patient gets to the right doctor at the right time.

“Viz.ai’s applied artificial intelligence solutions have been developed by top stroke clinicians and technical experts in the world and we are excited to be able to bring these transformational technologies to Baylor St. Luke’s and our community,” said Dr. Chethan P Venkatasubba Rao, Medical Director of Neuroscience ICU, Baylor St. Luke’s. “Before, we had to make decisions on the fly or quantify the images from the CAT scan, which is a laborious process which that can take hours to complete. The Viz.ai software bypasses the guess work and allows for early intervention, which results in improved outcomes for our patients.”

Viz LVO is transforming hospital workflow and synchronizing stroke care with a cloud-based artificial intelligence system that automatically analyzes CT scans for suspected LVOs. It alerts neurovascular specialists of a suspected LVOs, enabling earlier imaging review and better collaboration between specialists.

“We are excited to partner with Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center who has the foresight and commitment to provide cutting-edge applied artificial intelligent solutions to help transform healthcare to improve access to life-changing therapies for its community,” said Dr. Chris Mansi, neurosurgeon, co-founder and CEO of Viz.ai. “In this new era of Synchronized Care, Baylor St. Luke’s will provide its community with access to its expertise throughout its entire stroke network.”

###

About Stroke
Stroke is a leading cause of permanent disability, death and healthcare costs globally. According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA/ASA), stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S. and a leading cause of disability. When a stroke occurs, and the flow of oxygen-rich blood to a portion of the brain is blocked, approximately two million brain cells die every minute; in the case of stroke, "Time is Brain."

About Viz.ai, Inc.
Viz.ai is the leader in applied artificial intelligence in healthcare. Viz.ai’s mission is to fundamentally improve how healthcare is delivered in the world, through intelligent software that promises to reduce time to treatment and improve access to care. Viz.ai’s flagship product, Viz LVO, leverages advanced deep learning to communicate time-sensitive information about stroke patients straight to a specialist who can intervene and treat.

In February 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted a De Novo clearance for Viz LVO, the first-ever computer-aided triage and notification software. Viz.ai announced its second FDA clearance for Viz CTP through the 510(k) pathway, offering healthcare providers an important tool for automated cerebral perfusion image analysis, and a third FDA 510k clearance was received in 2020 for Viz ICH, Viz.ai’s tool for identifying suspected intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) strokes.

Viz.ai is located in San Francisco and Tel Aviv and backed by leading Silicon Valley investors, including Kleiner Perkins and Google Ventures.

About Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center
Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center is an 881-bed quaternary care academic medical center that is a joint venture between Baylor College of Medicine and St. Luke’s Health. Located in the Texas Medical Center, the hospital is the home of the Texas Heart® Institute, a cardiovascular research and education institution founded in 1962 by Denton A. Cooley, MD. The hospital was the first facility in Texas and the Southwest designated a Magnet® hospital for Nursing Excellence by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, receiving the award five consecutive times. Baylor St. Luke’s also has two community emergency centers offering adult and pediatric care for the Greater Houston area.