Maastricht University has signed an agreement with Apollo-Microsoft Cardiac Global Data Consortium to help expand the AI Network for cardiology and research on cardiovascular diseases in the Netherlands. The partnership was announced at the inaugural session of the DST-CII India Netherlands Technology Summit in New Delhi.
Maastricht University is an international university in the Netherlands with more than 18,000 students and 4,400 employees and is considered one of the best young universities in the world.
Founded in 1983, Apollo Hospitals was India’s first corporate hospital and is now one of Asia’s foremost integrated healthcare group with over 71 hospitals and a network of pharmacies, primary care clinics, diagnostic centers, telemedicine centers, as well as medical education centers and a research foundation.
The consortium is building AI Network for Cardiology to develop an India-specific heart risk score and better predict cardiac diseases. As part of Microsoft’s AI Network for Healthcare initiative and built on Microsoft Azure, the AI-powered CVD Risk Score API aims to determine a more accurate CVD risk score for the Indian population taking into consideration risk factors including lifestyle attributes like diet, tobacco & smoking preferences, physical activity, and psychological stress & anxiety.
The algorithm is based on a vast amount of data pooled from over 200,000 patients treated at six of Apollo’s hospitals. Till date, over 20,000 people have already been screened using the API and in many cases, physicians have been able to predict the risk score of patients 5 to 7 years in advance.
At Maastricht, the model will now be validated using data from the Maastricht Study (a long-term cohort health study in the Maastricht region) and from the Heart+Vascular Center at Maastricht University Medical Center.
Building on the success of our partnership with Microsoft that led to the development of an India-specific AI-powered risk score for heart disease, we are taking this collaboration to the global stage in partnership with international organizations. The international consortium will enable a global validation of the algorithms and expand the scope of the risk score to cover multiple conditions in cardiovascular disease. The partnership with renowned health systems across the world to scale the API will go a long way in helping achieve the World Health Organization’s goal of reducing the risk of premature mortality from non-communicable diseases, including CVDs, by 25% by 2025.
– Dr. Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Group
The goal of the international consortium is to achieve a Standard Cardiac Risk Score. This will enable doctors across the world to identify cardiac risks in patients and design a structured road map to reduce risks, with the aim of a long-term reduction in the global burden of cardiac disease.
