Automation with Anatomical Intelligence as a Novel Pathway in Echocardiography for the Advancement of Measurements and Analysis

Abstract

Clinical environments are rapidly changing to demand higher throughputs, lower cost, and more successful clinical outcomes. Echocardiography has, in turn, been forced to evolve. In addition to providing real-time imaging at a relatively low cost and risk to the patient, it now also provides rapid and robust measurements that aid in monitoring, diagnosis, and intervention. These advancements of measurements and analysis are achieved through automation afforded by Anatomical Intelligence, which is an automatic recognition and segmentation of anatomic structures within an echo image by a trained algorithm. Early versions of Anatomical Intelligence have focused on expediting the workflow of an expert sonographer, whereas, future versions will focus on enabling novice sonographers to perform tasks previously only achievable by experts.