VisualDx, an award-winning web-based clinical decision support system, has received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop diagnostic and surveillance tools to help medical providers improve treatment decisions and outcomes in underserved areas.
VisualDx will expand equitable access to its clinical decision support, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools to provide guidance, specialist knowledge, and education for providers in low-resource settings.
As part of the initiative, VisualDx will support national public health efforts in India and Nigeria by developing country-specific logic for its decision-support platform to enhance surveillance, detection, and triage of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and other rare infectious diseases. The company’s application combines AI/ML image analysis with structured clinical data, information, and questions to educate providers about the presentation and management of NTDs and other similar diseases, and can be tailored to meet the experience level of various users, from community health workers to physicians. It also offers robust tracking and reporting capabilities to study cases, differentials, and outcomes across each country.
“The public health needs of many rural and underserved areas often go unmet from provider and doctor shortages, and limited access to diagnostics, assistive technology, education, and training,” said Wendemagegn Enbiale, MD MPH PhD, Global Health Information Officer of VisualDx. “Advances in modern medicine and technology have made it possible to deliver equitable, high-quality information for all patients, regardless of where they live or seek medical attention. With this partnership, we are developing decision support tools to assist primary healthcare providers working in low-resource settings.”
With a shortage of healthcare providers worldwide, all facing mounting health crises, the demand for local information resources to drive positive outcomes continues to grow. Tropical communities are predominantly and disproportionately impacted by NTDs and other rare infectious diseases, underscoring the need in these communities for modernised clinical and public health tools to help medical professionals and less trained healthcare workers to provide timely and quality care.
VisualDx is an award-winning diagnostic clinical decision support system that has become the standard medical professional resource at more than 50% of US medical schools and more than 2,300 hospitals and clinics worldwide. VisualDx combines problem-oriented clinical search with the world’s best curated medical image library, plus medical knowledge from experts and sophisticated machine learning algorithms. Learn more at www.visualdx.com.
