AI Enhanced POCUS (Point of Care Ultrasound)

Welcome to the 4th episode of the special series on Health Technologies. In this episode, Miguel Coimbra (INESC TEC) talks with three of the most interesting and knowledgeable people in Europe on the topic of Artificial Intelligence enhanced POCUS (Point of Care Ultrasound).

The topics to be addressed are:

·       The rising clinical importance of POCUS

o  What clinical areas or specialties are today the early adopters of POCUS?

o  What are the reasons for this early adoption, and what are the limitations for adoption in other clinical areas or specialties?

o  POCUS in an European context vs. POCUS in an underprivileged scenario context. Are we facing different motivations and adoption challenges?

o  What should be the European role in promoting POCUS in underprivileged scenarios?

·       The role of AI in the future of POCUS

o  What are the POCUS challenges that can be addressed or mitigated with AI?

§ Probe positioning

§ Assisted decision

o  What is the pathway to successfully achieve these AI results?

§ The path for Industry

§ The path for Academia

·       AI-Enhanced POCUS in Horizon Europe

o  Can these challenges be successfully addressed within the 2021-22 program?

o  What calls should we promote for 2023 and beyond, to successfully address this challenge?

A short bio of our speakers and moderator:

Michael Friebe, Dr. Friebe currently is a research fellow of TUM in Munich, an adjunct full professor at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, and a professor of HealthTec Innovation at the medical faculty of Otto-von-Guericke-University in Magdeburg, Germany.

Dietmar Seifriedsberger, Global General Manager Point of Care Ultrasound GE Healthcare. Dietmar joined GE in 2005 and held leadership roles as Sales Manager Europe for the Ultrasound IT Business. He later became the General Manager for this business in EMEA which aims at improving efficiency, streamline workflows and deliver customer outcomes in Women’s Health, Radiology and Cardiovascular to public and private customers. After that he managed the Ultrasound business for Austria and Switzerland and was at the same time Managing Director of GE Healthcare Austria GmbH & Co OG.

Daniel Simões Lopes is an Assistant Professor of the Computer Science & Engineering Department at Técnico Lisboa, and Senior Researcher at INESC ID, where he carries research in Computer Graphics and Human-Computer Interaction. He holds a degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Lisbon where he also graduated in computational engineering under the framework of the UT Austin|Portugal Program.

Miguel Coimbra, coordinator of the TEC4HEALTH R&I area at INESC TEC and Associate Professor (with Aggregation) at the Computer Science Department of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto. He is a member of the Executive Board of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto since 2019 and current Chair of the Portugal Chapter of the IEEE Engineering and Medicine Society. He was one of the founders of IT Porto in 2007, its coordinator during 2015-19 and founder of the Interactive Media Group at this institute.

Do not hesitate in following the links above for detailed bios and contacts.

Additional materials:

·       11/05/2021 - UltraSight raises $13 million, bringing AI guidance for cardiac ultrasounds anywhere

·       HORIZON-HLTH-2021-DISEASE-04-03 - Innovative approaches to enhance poverty-related diseases research in sub- Saharan Africa