ITW's Obstetric Sweeps Protocol helps power AI-enabled ultrasound

In 2010, Imaging the World (ITW) radiologists developed and published as open-source (IEEE reference in our scholarly activities section) our Obstetric Sweeps Protocol (OSP). 

The OSP captures all of the anatomy of a pregnancy during an obstetric ultrasound scan in 6 transducer sweeps over the abdomen. These are easy to perform, and most people can learn how to do them with excellent diagnostic results  in just a couple of hours.

ITW also developed software that compresses the “sweeps” images to about the size of a photo so they can be sent over any cellular network for remote review. We use state-of-the-art processes to send the sweeps images. All images from the ultrasound scan examination are sent securely with only an “ITW number” as an identifier, and no personal or private patient information. The ITW number, which serves as the medical record number, and the patient identifying information are found together only at the clinic, accessible by the patient’s care provider.

An ITW expert at the other end can review the digital images in our Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS) through teleradiology (telemedicine).  Once sent, the images arrive almost instantaneously. The “sweeps” are decompressed for review, and then the expert, usually someone local in-country, can scroll through the images to find any complications and even do accurate dating of the pregnancy. If the midwife or nurse at the clinic has already prepared their preliminary interpretation of the images for the patient, the expert can ensure that there is good agreement between the two interpretation results in plenty of time to direct patient management to the next best steps in care. 

We use this model for training, Quality Assurance peer review, and on-demand assistance in emergencies. Our OSP sweeps are uniquely well-positioned for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-enabled ultrasound, and several companies are already using these OSP sweeps to develop their software for go-to market.

One could imagine that the ITW OSP sweeps and teleradiology model would work well in any setting where there is access to a cellular network. This is true! We are working on models to implement this programming for any low-resource setting, as well as for disaster relief, displaced or vulnerable communities, and conflict zones.