EMVision Medical Devices Prepares Study to Support Remote Use of emu Bedside Brain Scanner

EMVision Medical Devices (ASX: EMV) has completed site visits and protocol ahead of a regional benefits study designed to generate evidence for the remote use of its emu bedside neurodiagnostic scanner.

The study will target regional and remote hospitals in South Australia that lack ready access to computed tomography (CT) scans for suspected stroke patients who must typically be transferred by road or air to metropolitan hospitals for diagnosis.

Funded by a Co-operative Research Centres Projects grant, the work will employ telehealth and specifically trained nurses to demonstrate the ability of emu to provide more timely stroke diagnosis.

Following protocol finalisation, EMVision intends to integrate emu via telehealth so that scan results are available to consulting stroke neurologists as part of a standard consultation.

Regional Site Visits

EMVision’s team visited two remote emergency departments that employ nurse-led emergency assessment models without onsite CT and varying degrees of supporting medical coverage.

Patients with suspected stroke admitted to these sites must be transferred to a larger hospital before a diagnosis can be confirmed and subsequent treatment decisions made.

One of the sites is among the most isolated in South Australia, with the nearest comprehensive stroke centre approximately eight hours away by road, or around 1.5 hours by air.

During the visits, EMVision’s team worked through the practical details of an emu-enabled workflow with staff, including how a suspected stroke patient would be assessed and how an emu scan would fit alongside existing telestroke consultation and retrieval processes.

US Rural Critical Care Model

The South Australian sites participating in EMVision’s study share a similar model of care to critical access hospitals (CAHs) in the US.

CAHs are federally designated rural hospitals with a maximum of 25 beds located more than 56 kilometres from another hospital and required to provide 24-hour emergency care.

Access to stroke diagnosis tools is inconsistent at these hospitals, with a national analysis finding that only 56% of US states have some form of CT imaging available at their local CAH.

Even where a CT scanner is present, the availability of technicians to run the CT cannot be assured and the advanced imaging needed to positively identify acute ischaemia and guide decision making is frequently unavailable.

In addition, stroke mortality in the most rural US counties is approximately 30% higher than in large metropolitan areas.

Potential Paradigm Shift

EMVision sees the study representing a potential paradigm shift for participating hospitals, from refining stroke care workflows focused on identifying transfer candidates to adding diagnostic capabilities to identify patients eligible for treatment prior to being transferred.

“Stroke outcomes for people in regional and remote Australia are significantly worse than for those in our cities, an inequity mirrored in many rural communities worldwide,” managing director Scott Kirkland said.

“Our study is designed to show the benefits of moving the diagnosis to the patient and speeding up time-sensitive clinical decisions, starting in some of the nation’s most remote hospitals.”

Mr Kirkland said the experience and evidence generated in the regional benefits study would be highly relevant to the US regional opportunity and inform the design of subsequent US-based benefits work with clinical collaborators.