AI-Powered e-Stroke Software in Andalucía

Brainomix’s AI e-Stroke software goes live across Andalucía, supporting the regional stroke network initiative

Brainomix has announced the deployment of its e-Stroke software across Andalucía, the southern region in Spain with more than eight million inhabitants and a geography similar in size to Portugal, Hungary or Austria.

The company has been working closely with the Andalusian Telestroke Centre, which manages stroke care across the region through a system of more than 30 hospitals, with an annual incidence of more than 3,000 strokes.

Stroke has been a major healthcare focus for the region following a 2018 initiative which showed stroke to be a leading cause of female death in Andalucía and contributing to overall high mortality rates.

Advanced stroke care for eligible patients

The Andalucian stroke network operates six comprehensive stroke centres, where more advanced stroke care can be delivered, including mechanical thrombectomy, a procedure in which a blood clot is surgically removed from the brain’s arteries to restore blood flow.

Patients eligible for this procedure – typically those with larger occlusions, for whom intravenous thrombolysis alone may not be adequate – may need to be transferred from one of the smaller hospitals in the region, a decision which e-Stroke can support.

Prof Joan Montaner, Andalusian stroke plan director, discussed how e-Stroke has become a critical component in the regional stroke plan: “The e-Stroke platform has now been installed in all of the telestroke hospitals across the network; 33 centres in total. This network-wide installation will allow us to achieve a more standard interpretation of CT scans, which is a critical first step when deciding how best to treat – and potentially transfer – a stroke patient.”

Faster treatment times encourage patient independence

A recent study presented at the World Stroke Congress in October 2021 found that the implementation of e-Stroke at a primary stroke centre in the UK resulted in faster treatment times and enabled more stroke patients to achieve functional independence.

Dr Ana Barragán, consultant stroke physician at the Andalusian Telestroke Centre, has already begun to see similar impact from e-Stroke within the network: “With the software now in place, it is becoming easier for our team to detect patients eligible for reperfusion treatment, allowing for faster treatment times. In stroke, time is brain, so the faster a patient is treated, the better chance they have for an improved outcome.”

Working across Iberia to improve treatment

Brainomix has been active across Spain, working closely with a number of regions and hospital networks. Tomás Rosón, Brainomix’s healthcare manager covering Iberia and Latin America, spoke about the work the company is doing in the region.

“Our main objective is to work closely with a region, to understand their technical and clinical needs, so that we can adapt our platform to deliver a customised, automated solution – an approach that ensures easy implementation and broad adoption of our AI technology,” he said.

“In this case, we have connected 33 hospitals with one central server, installed within the Andalusian network environment, allowing for a unique stroke treatment workflow across the region.”

e-Stroke is a collection of tools that use state-of-the-art AI algorithms to support doctors by providing real-time interpretation of brain scans to help guide treatment and transfer decisions for stroke patients, allowing more patients to be treated in the right place, at the right time.