McLaren Health Deploys AI to Scan for Heart Attack Risk
Michigan-based McLaren Health Care has launched an AI tool that analyzes CT scans to identify early signs of heart disease. The system is designed to flag patients at high risk for a heart attack, often before any symptoms appear, by detecting plaque buildup in cardiac arteries as reported.
- McLaren Health Care is partnering with the tech company Bunkerhill Health to implement this AI program. The system utilizes Bunkerhill's FDA-cleared "Carebricks" platform to analyze existing chest CT scans for incidental findings of coronary artery and aortic valve calcium, which are indicators of heart disease. This allows the health system to screen for heart disease without ordering new, specialized cardiac scans. - This AI application represents a significant trend in cardiology, which is second only to radiology in the number of FDA-cleared AI algorithms. The push for these tools is driven by the need for automation and improved reimbursements for technologies like coronary CT angiography (CCTA) AI analysis. Companies like Cleerly have recently received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation and new CPT codes for their AI-driven cardiac analysis tools, signaling growing adoption and financial support. - For nurses moving into informatics, experience in high-acuity settings like the ICU is highly valuable. This background provides a deep understanding of clinical workflows, the urgency of data access, and how technology impacts decision-making for critically ill patients—all crucial for designing and implementing effective health IT systems. This clinical expertise is essential for bridging the gap between the technical and clinical worlds. - A common pain point for frontline clinicians is the poor user interface and workflow integration of many health IT systems, including EHRs. Complaints often center on excessive data entry, cumbersome interfaces that don't match clinical processes, and system slowness, which can lead to delays in care and contribute to burnout. An informaticist's role is to help address these issues to improve system usability and efficiency. - EHR vendor Epic Systems is actively integrating AI to enhance its platform, which is used by a majority of U.S. hospitals. Their new AI tools, including assistants named "Art" and "Penny," aim to help clinicians by generating clinical notes, proactively surfacing relevant patient data, and streamlining administrative tasks like medical coding. They are also developing predictive models using their vast "Cosmos" dataset to identify patients at risk for events like cardiovascular disease. - To transition into nursing informatics, the Informatics Nursing Certification (RN-BC) from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) is a key credential. Eligibility typically requires a BSN, two years of full-time RN experience, recent practice hours in informatics nursing, and continuing education in the specialty. - A core challenge in health IT that informatics nurses tackle is interoperability—the ability of different systems to exchange and use data. They often work with standards like HL7 and FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) to ensure that data from various sources, such as patient monitors, lab systems, and EHRs, can be seamlessly integrated to provide a complete patient picture. - One of the major frustrations for clinicians that an informatics nurse can help solve is "alert fatigue." This occurs when EHRs and other systems generate an overwhelming number of notifications, many of which are not clinically relevant, causing important alerts to be overlooked. An informatics professional can work on optimizing these clinical decision support systems to make alerts more meaningful and actionable.
