Community Healthcare System is partnering with Denver-based health tech firm Eon to detect cancer in its earliest stages so as to be able to treat it better.
The health care system hopes to improve patients outcomes by using innovative artificial intelligence-powered technology in its lung and breast cancer care programs at Community Hospital in Munster, St. Catherine Hospital in East Chicago, St. Mary Medical Center in Hobart and Community Stroke & Rehabilitation Center in Crown Point. Its health care professionals now are using Eon Essential Patient Management to identify, capture and track incidental findings of suspicious abnormalities when imagining is being done for an unrelated reason.
“The incidental identification and patient management capabilities of EPM Breast set it apart as health care’s only software option for a comprehensive breast program. It offers one solution for both screening and incidental patient populations,” Eon Chief Medical Officer Dr. Scott Skibo said. “Together, the EPM Lung Cancer Screening and the EPM Lung modules deliver the ideal solution for a comprehensive lung program, ensuring all patients get the care they need and no one falls through the cracks.”
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An estimated 200 million to 300 million radiology scans take place every year in the United States. About 25% of them have incidental findings that are often the first sign of an underlying condition that requires accurate identification and treatment.
About 95% of lung nodules for instance are found incidentally.
“Finding breast and lung cancers at the earliest stages is the goal of every cancer program in the country,” said Dr. Jonathon Lee, medical director of cancer services, Community Healthcare System. “Cancer is very beatable when it is treated in the early stages before it spreads and has a chance to take over. With Eon EPM, we now have an amazing tool to help us in this battle.”
Eon's system uses the computational linguistics branch of artificial intelligence to identify incidental breast findings during unrelated radiology exams with 95% accuracy and lung nodules with 98% accuracy. It then tracks follow-up treatment to help patients who are at risk of potentially life-threatening diseases.
Community Healthcare System is deploying the system to identify and manage incidental lung and breast findings to better fight against two of the most common forms of cancer in the United States. The hope is to detect the diseases early when treatment is more effective.
“With this system, we can identify the cancers long before the patient even has symptoms and use the software to track the patient from diagnosis to treatment,” Lee said. “It will help us make sure that someone with an incidental finding is detected and followed up with a specialist in our hospital system. The physicians and nurses in the Community Healthcare System are dedicated to beating this disease and now we have one of the best available weapons to help us win the war against cancer.”
For more information, visit COMHS.org/cancer.