Spectral AI Inc (NASDAQ:MDAI) has highlighted how its DeepView System has been designed to broaden equity in burn care access and optimize healthcare resources following the release of a new report from the American Burn Association (ABA) which noted physical and economic barriers to burn care specialists.
The report, published in the Journal of Burn Care & Research January/February 2024, spotlighted the uneven distribution of ABA-verified burn centers across the United States, particularly impacting rural and pediatric patients.
It found that pediatric patients travelled an average of 30.5 miles further than adults to access their nearest burn center, increasing the cost of transport.
Rural patients have to travel 50.02% further to access burn centers, resulting in transportation costs that are nearly double those for urban patients. Air transport, which is often necessary in rural areas, is a major contributor to these increased costs.
Both adult and pediatric burn center access is low in the Mountain West and Southeaster regions of the US, which Spectral AI noted hinders timely treatment and negatively impacts long-term health outcomes.
“Specialized burn centers are critical to minimizing burn-associated morbidity and mortality, and the disparity in access to these facilities, especially in rural areas and among children, poses a significant risk to our communities,” Spectral AI CEO Peter Carlson commented.
“A compounding factor of this care gap is the associated increase in transportation costs.”
Spectral AI highlighted that its DeepView System allows healthcare providers to assess the healing potential of a burn wound and make timely and informed treatment decisions.
The DeepView System’s image processing algorithm leverages multispectral imaging which has been trained on a proprietary database of more than 340 billion clinically validated data points.
“For both adults and pediatric patients, an accurate wound assessment is critical in determining the appropriate treatment protocol,” Carlson added.
“Whether the patient is seen at a specialized burn center or local emergency department, we believe that empowering healthcare providers with a technology that provides an immediate, objective, and binary wound healing assessment is a vital piece of the wound care puzzle.”