AI listens in on emergency calls to diagnose cardiac arrest

Diagnosing cardiac arrest quickly is vital

Diagnosing cardiac arrest quickly is vital

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If you dial the emergency services in Denmark, soon you won’t just get a human operator, but an artificially intelligent assistant will be listening in too.

Developed by start-up Corti, the system kicks into action when some dials 112 in Copenhagen, then it starts listening for signs of a possible cardiac arrest. To do this, it first uses speech recognition software to transcribe what’s being said before analysing the text. Once it is confident of a diagnosis, it flashes an alert on the screen for the operator to see.

Identifying cardiac arrest over the phone is one of the trickiest tasks for an operator. The person calling is often distressed and lacking medical training, so reading between the lines is key.

Recognising the symptoms early can be the difference between life or death, but because only 1 per cent of emergency