GE HealthCare Executives Speak on the Image of Health

Medical technology powerhouse GE HealthCare has continuously invested in the rapidly growing area of remote operations through its innovation and strategic collaborations to support healthcare institutions’ current and future needs.

The company’s stated goal is to offer remote operations solutions that pave the way for increased access to patients, including those who may need complex care and support from an offsite expert technologist. Healthcare systems are looking not only to leverage one expert’s skills across multiple locations for knowledge sharing and training, but possess an imaging fleet that includes multiple vendors and modalities. As such, GE HealthCare deemed it critical to expand its remote operations portfolio.

A new version of the company’s Digital Expert Access with remote scanning earned a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nod in November 2023. It lets users share expertise, best practices, and in-the-moment advice. It also provides real-time, remote console control. The solution is compatible with GE HealthCare’s magnetic resonance (MR) devices.

The company received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for IONIC Health’s nCommand Lite in March 2024. The vendor-agnostic, multi-modality nCommand Lite is exclusively distributed by GE HealthCare. It provides remote patient scanning support, remote access for image viewing, and the ability to connect to remote experts who can provide real-time guidance to the licensed technologist operating the scanner.

To explore these technologies, MPO spoke to Rekha Ranganathan, senior VP and general manager of Imaging Platforms & Digital Solutions at GE HealthCare.

Sam Brusco: How can technology like GE HealthCare’s recently FDA-cleared Digital Expert Access and IONIC Health’s nCommand Lite increase access to specialist care in rural settings without onsite radiologists?

Rekha Ranganathan: A recent study found that 80% of radiology departments are suffering from staff shortages.¹ Health systems grappling with operational challenges and workforce shortages are increasingly looking for innovative solutions to increase their flexibility in staffing, scheduling, and operational structure to better serve their patients. Clinicians are being asked to manage a fast-growing number of imaging procedures at a time when radiologists and image specialists are in short supply and in high demand. 

Right now, patients in rural and underserved areas often experience long wait times or rescheduled appointments due to limited imaging staff, potentially disrupting their care and threatening their health. Remote scanning enables the use of specialty diagnostic imaging equipment, such as MR, CT, and PET-CT, from outside of the radiology suite by enabling these rural sites to access expertise of an experienced technologist.  

Digital Expert Access is a real-time, virtual solution that enables collaboration among radiology teams within a single hospital or across multiple locations. This is the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-cleared device to enable remote patient scanning on GE HealthCare MR devices. The system enables sharing of expertise, best practices, and in-the-moment advice, as well as real-time, remote console control. This solution can help patients in rural and remote areas to seek care that today is constrained due to technological limitations and provider shortages in their local region.

The nCommand Lite system by IONIC Health further expands the ability of remote collaboration and support to multiple modalities (e.g., CT, PET-CT, and also covers multiple vendors). This offers remote patient scanning support, remote access for review of images, and the ability to connect to remote experts who can provide real-time guidance to the licensed local technologist operating the scanner. Remote experts can use these features to aid in training, procedure assessment, and scanning parameter management, as well as scan initiation for MR.

Brusco: How can the industry use advanced medtech to address health equity issues, such as disparities in cancer diagnoses?

Ranganathan: One of the most heartbreaking realities of healthcare is the frequency with which patients go untreated for years—or worse, get a terminal prognosis—due to diagnostic delays. These delays, and their impacts on human health, are magnified in underserved communities where there are disparities in access and comprehensive care. In the United States, a person’s zip code can be a better predictor of life expectancy than genetics. 

One way that medtech companies are tackling this issue is by using artificial intelligence (AI) to address disparities in breast cancer care. Women in Black and LatinX populations are often diagnosed with breast cancer at more advanced stages when the treatment options can be limited and costly, often leading to poor prognoses. According to a recent study, women of color also often experience delayed time to treatment. Black women have a 4% lower incidence rate of breast cancer than white women but a 40% higher breast cancer death rate. 

Radiologists have an opportunity to improve access to more equitable breast cancer care. Many breast imaging centers now use computer-aided detection (iCAD), an AI technology, alongside traditional mammograms. iCAD and associated applications help radiologists by speeding up the reading process and providing additional clinical insights.

Studies show that mammogram screenings miss about one out of eight cases of breast cancer, and iCAD helps address this gap. While regular mammograms remain the gold standard for early detection, AI algorithms can help identify subtle signs that human observers might overlook. In one clinical trial, adding an AI algorithm to mammography screenings spotted 20% more breast cancer cases.

Brusco: What is AI’s role in increasing operational efficiency? How do efficiencies like expedited exam times, reduced delays, and improved workflows enable care for more patients?

Ranganathan: The potential of AI-driven technologies and digitization emerges as a pivotal solution for needed innovation to support healthcare professionals in confronting the increasing complexity of modern medicine and growing volume pressures, giving providers more bandwidth to refocus on their love of medicine and bedside care.

Take radiology, as an example, where every day is different in a radiology practice with widely fluctuating volumes, varying case mixes, and frequent unscheduled events. A survey of 1,125 radiology department leaders revealed that the main challenge in radiology departments is operational efficiency (73%). With so much variability within already complex workforce dynamics, it can be difficult or even impossible to assure staffing is rightsized to the daily case workload. GE HealthCare is augmenting the power of advanced radiology with optimized clinical workflows and AI solutions to help healthcare providers deliver better patient care while streamlining workflows and increasing productivity. 

For example, Imaging 360 supports streamlining imaging operations, cost effectively, by optimizing the radiology fleet and staff through one holistic view. This is critical in today’s environment, given the interdependencies present in a radiology suite’s daily workflow.

We’re also using AI to improve patient workflow and enable shortened pre-scan times. One such example is “auto positioning.” Operators spend a lot of time on patient positioning, impacting the entire workflow. The accuracy of patient positioning impacts image quality and radiation dose and it requires operator’s skills. To resolve those clinical challenges, GE HealthCare has rolled out an auto positioning function technology using AI and 3D technology.

For MRI technology, we’re using deep learning algorithms created from a database of tens of thousands of images to automatically detect patient anatomy and prescribe MRI slices for routine and challenging neurological and knee exams. The automated workflow creates efficiency and reproduces steps used in planning to ensure exam consistency for same patient follow-up.

Heads Up

In May 2024, GE HealthCare unveiled SIGNA MAGNUS 3T, a head-only magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to explore neuroscience advancements.

Previously, neuroscience has been restricted by performance limitations of whole-body MR systems. Technological and biological limitations have constrained neuroscience, particularly in the study of psychiatric diseases and neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s.

SIGNA MAGNUS is GE HealthCare’s most advanced 3T MR imaging device and is designed for neurological and oncological research for head-only imaging. It offers detail and clarity that allows in-depth exploration of brain microstructure, microvasculature, and function.

The company earned U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance for SIGNA MAGNUS 3T in November. In order to explore its capabilities and potential for clinical imaging and neuroscience, MPO spoke to two GE HealthCare experts:

• Suchandrima Banerjee, Senior Global Director, Neuro MR
• Anja Mett, Global Product Leader, Neurology

Sam Brusco: How does the SIGNA MAGNUS MR scanner reveal recent advancements and paradigm shifts in neuroscience imaging research and development?

Suchandrima Banerjee: Neurology is one of the most difficult specialties in medicine due to the human brain’s complexity and because the underlying cause of most neurological disorders is poorly understood. Today, 43% of the world’s population suffers from neurological disorders,² yet only a fraction can be diagnosed by traditional MRI technology. While recent breakthroughs in deep learning technologies have improved image resolution, signal-to-noise, and consistency, patients’ brains suffering from traumatic brain injury or early stages of neurodegeneration can appear normal in conventional MR scans.

SIGNA MAGNUS is GE HealthCare’s ambitious bet to rise up to this challenge. It’s the most advanced 3.0T MRI device we’ve ever invented. It provides significantly higher performance than a top-of-the-line whole body clinical 3.0 Tesla MR system, with similar energy consumption and siting requirements. This is possible by virtue of a very high efficiency gradient insert inside the bore of a whole-body 3T system.

It’s specifically designed for head-only imagining in MR neuroscience research with potential applications in neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry. The innovation it represents is huge. The brain images are rendered in magnificent detail and clarity, offering users an in-depth exploration of brain microstructure, microvasculature, and function.

Brusco: What industry problems does this address, and how are AI and next-generation technologies helping neurologists solve them to improve patient care?

Banerjee: Our new MRI system offers superior gradient performance, enabling the detection of fine details that were previously unattainable. We envision the high gradient performance of the scanner, augmented by deep-learning algorithms, will allow researchers to push the boundaries of advanced anatomical, diffusion, and functional MR techniques amplified. 

There are many unmet clinical needs in neurological and psychiatric care. With the rise in elderly population, the number of people afflicted with dementia is increasing at an alarming rate, straining the socioeconomic system across the world. So, there is an urgency to better understand the disease and predict risk of progression. At the same time, recent breakthroughs in disease-modifying therapies for Alzheimer’s dementia also motivate early detection. 

SIGNA MAGNUS empowers researchers to acquire images at “mesoscale,” which can shed insights at the level of detail of neurons, the unit of nervous system, or synaptic junctions. It provides the freedom to capture MR images at a wide range of experimental settings previously not achievable on a clinical scanner. This makes it possible to characterize, for example, the slow-moving cerebrospinal fluid, as well as fast-moving arterial blood flow. If MAGNUS can enable the discovery of MR biomarkers for neuroinflammation and clearance of neurotoxic materials from the brain, the implications for neurological care would be significant because these are relevant to many neurological conditions.

Also consider the crisis in mental health issues; imaging is rarely used for diagnosis or treatment decisions in psychiatry. By imaging brain function in quick snapshots, in greater anatomical detail and more consistently, SIGNA MAGNUS can perhaps shed more light on brain cognitive processes and circuitry. GE Healthcare focuses on setting new benchmarks in medical research and clinical care. Our R&D collaborations with academia are helping to push the boundaries of what is possible in MR imaging and translate new discoveries into the clinic.  

Brusco: What are the implications of using SIGNA MAGNUS for Alzheimer’s diagnosis and research?

Anja Mett: More than one in 10 American seniors (65 and older) lives with Alzheimer’s disease, the leading cause of dementia worldwide. Historically, medications have had limited effects, treating the disease’s symptoms rather than its root cause. In the last year, that has started to change. 

The FDA recently approved two different Alzheimer’s drugs to successfully target the build-up of amyloid plaque in the brain—a hallmark of the disease. Importantly, Alzheimer’s patients must receive an early diagnosis and start their regime when the disease is still in its milder, early stages to realize the greatest therapeutic benefit. That is why this rollout of SIGNA MAGNUS is right on time and synergistic with our approach to support the Alzheimer’s Disease care pathway with imaging and digital solutions.

The diagnosis of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s Disease is increasingly driven by biomarker confirmation as opposed to clinical signs and symptoms alone. Precise medical imaging like PET amyloid imaging and MRI are a safe, non-invasive way to confirm underlying brain changes for an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. 

In addition, for the amyloid targeting therapies now approved in the U.S., baseline MRI scans are required to confirm eligibility and multiple follow up MRI scans to ensure patient safety. 

It’s not just the MAGNUS system we’re bringing to bear on the Alzheimer’s fight. GE HealthCare is now better positioned to support the entire Alzheimer’s care pathway, across diagnosis, therapy planning, and follow-up monitoring with its comprehensive suite of products and solutions. 

From a research perspective, AI now enables researchers to parse and aggregate patient MRI data in different screening stages, utilizing imaging, blood, cerebrospinal fluid, electrophysiological, and digital biomarkers. AI algorithms can also analyze biomarker data to generate risk assessments, early diagnoses, and prognoses, helping lay the foundation for early detection and treatment.

References

¹ GE HealthCare data and market research.
² www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(24)00038-3/fulltext