GE HealthCare Launches AI-Powered Venue Ultrasound System with Caption Guidance to Revolutionize Point-of-Care Cardiac Imaging

GE HealthCare, headquartered in Chicago, recently announced the launch of its Venue clinical ultrasound system, equipped with AI-driven operational guidance.

GE Healthcare stated,The Venue series is among the first of its ultrasound-guided products to include Caption Guidance. The company incorporated this AI-driven imaging guidance technology into its product line after acquiring Caption Health earlier this year.

Caption Guidance is an optional add-on feature that provides new cardiac image diagnostic quality assistance at the point of clinical care. It supports physician operation in various clinical environments, such as emergency rooms, intensive care units, and anesthesiology.

GE Healthcare stated that the Caption Guidance technology provides doctors with step-by-step guidance to obtain ultrasound images for cardiac evaluation. It can assist those who are not ultrasound experts — by addressing the training and skill barriers associated with ultrasound use, which in turn expands the utilization of ultrasound.

According to the latest press release from GE Healthcare, this product may help in the early detection of signs of heart disease. It might also contribute to improving clinical outcomes through early intervention, slowing disease progression, and potentially even preventing hospitalization.

"The Venue series of ultrasound systems supports clinical decision-making, even in emergency rooms, by integrating Caption Guidance, an AI-driven software. This device enhances cardiac care and reduces the burden on ultrasound technicians and radiology departments, enabling more physicians to perform scans and triage patients," said Dietmar Seifriedsberger, Global General Manager of GE HealthCare. "This AI software is expected to increase the number of physicians capable of performing cardiac ultrasound scans, which is particularly valuable in high-demand and accuracy-critical environments like emergency or intensive care settings."

Caption Guidance

Innovative applications will be further expanded

GE Healthcare now offers Caption Guidance on its Venue clinical ultrasound systems in the U.S. and plans to integrate AI technology into other ultrasound systems, including handheld devices, with the goal of further expanding the application of diagnostic care and the use of ultrasound across various care settings.

Caption Guidance technology belongs to the Verisound technology suite, which was previously part of GE HealthCare's ultrasound digital solutions. Verisound is a new brand that integrates the company’s existing ultrasound AI and digital workflow solutions into a unified platform.

The company plans to debut the Venue series and Caption Guidance in Philadelphia next week. It will also unveil the Verisound brand at the ACEP conference and plans to showcase its new Vscan AIR SL handheld ultrasound technology, which was launched in August.

"We recognize the potential of Caption Health AI in revolutionizing ultrasound applications and have moved quickly to integrate this promising technology to enhance patient care," said Karley Yoder, Chief Digital Officer of GE HealthCare. "Just months after acquiring Caption Health, we have successfully launched Caption Guidance as a powerful new guidance tool on our Venue Family ultrasound systems, making the use of ultrasound at the point of care more efficient and confident, and strengthening our integrated products and solutions."

"We remain committed to leveraging this technology to generate more positive impacts and plan to expand its use into applications for pregnancy, fetal health, and lung diseases."

GE Healthcare Continues to Strengthen Cooperation in Imaging and Artificial Intelligence Fields

Coincidentally, in September, GE Healthcare and Mayo Clinic also announced a collaboration in imaging, artificial intelligence, and cancer treatment.

Jan Makela is the CEO of GE HealthCare's imaging business.

GE Healthcare and Mayo Clinic Reach Agreement to Collaborate on Medical Technology Based on Past Work, Expanding Certain Functionalities of GE Healthcare's Product Line; Four Key Areas of Collaboration EstablishedMagnetic Resonance Imaging, Ultrasound Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and Theranostics - A Cancer Treatment.

GE Healthcare Imaging CEO Jan Makela Shares More Details on Partnerships and the Future of Imaging Technology.

What led to your decision to collaborate with the Mayo Clinic?

We have a long history of cooperation, development, and joint research with Mayo Clinic. Dr. Callstrom, the chair of radiology at Mayo, met with me about a year ago, and we have been thinking about how to elevate our collaboration and medical technology to the next levels.

We are looking for a product fit that we can directly collaborate on, so we're not starting from scratch. We've discussed the areas where we both feel the strongest and most excited about growth... and where we can make the biggest impact.

What is the nature of your partnership? Will Mayo Clinic be a research partner, or will it also participate in the commercialization process?

This will largely involve intellectual property. We have set a basic framework to track where the IP goes. Mayo Clinic can use any product we develop or manufacture. The primary goal of our partnership is to be commercialization partners, but we will use all these products within Mayo Clinic itself first and then try to promote them more broadly. GE Healthcare currently offers some artificial intelligence features for its MRI machines.

MR scans typically take a very long time, and one key issue is how to make them faster so you don't have to spend 45 minutes in the machine.

Tens of thousands of MRI installations around the world, and we've done a lot of work on artificial intelligence to study how we can speed up image generation. We collaborate with artificial intelligence so that we can achieve better imaging results with less data, which means faster scans.

With the addition of Mayo, we will continue to research these product areas, not only enhancing clinical insights, better imaging, and how to make MR easier to use and more efficient.

Are your hospital customers purchasing these artificial intelligence tools through subscription, or are they embedded in the equipment?

Some artificial intelligence is just embedded software. We have made some system upgrades as a specific type of product for sale, but more often it is sold as a subscription. You purchase it, renew the subscription, and then receive software updates, so there are quite a few models. Some customers prefer subscriptions, while others prefer to buy it outright along with its upgrades. So I think you need a range of solutions.

How Does Therapeutics Work in the Context of Cancer Treatment?

Currently, there are two clinical drugs in use: one is called Pluvicto, and the other is called Lutathera. One is used for neuroendocrine tumors, and the other is used for prostate tumors. Both are suitable for advanced-stage patients.

The general idea is, when a patient has metastatic lesions, where are they and how big are they? Now there is a radioactive tracer that attaches to proteins expressed by the tumor. So, the patient is injected with the radiotracer, it goes everywhere the tumors are, and then clinicians can image it on a PET system to measure and characterize the tumor burden.

GE Healthcare Collaborates with Mayo Clinic to Accelerate Work in Imaging and Artificial Intelligence

It's clear now that there are many ways to treat cancer, and more recent therapies, such as cell therapy and gene therapy, are targeting cancer. It's somewhat similar because what you do is take the same molecules that attach to the tumor and then alter the isotope to a molecule that emits more radiation. It goes where the cancer is, sticks to the cancer, and then you get heavy radiation delivered into the cancer, so it kills it.

Therefore, it is important to use the same molecule to locate the cancer, determine the dosage, decide the treatment plan, and then use the same molecule with a different isotope to kill the cancer. This way, we can precisely track where the radiation dose is going and how the individual is responding to the tumor, thereby enhancing precise patient care.

As a leader in medical technology innovation, GE Healthcare has achieved numerous innovative results in various fields. As the “big brother” in the ultrasound field, GE Healthcare’s ultrasound technology development has consistently remained at the forefront globally.

Ultrasonic medical imaging equipment, as one of the niche sectors in the medical device industry, is experiencing continuous market expansion. According to statistics from Signify Research, the global market size for ultrasonic medical imaging equipment was 197,683 units in 2019, increased to 211,976 units in 2020, and is expected to further grow to 305,989 units by 2024, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.13%. In China, the market size for ultrasonic medical imaging equipment was 39,835 units in 2019, increased to 41,931 units in 2020, and is projected to reach 68,032 units by 2024, with a CAGR of 11.30%.

Currently, ultrasound technology has been deeply integrated with new technologies such as artificial intelligence and 5G. In the future, the application of ultrasound will become increasingly widespread, covering all aspects of diagnosis and treatment, and equipment will also develop in increasingly specialized directions.