By Aine Cryts
More than 795,000 people experience a stroke and approximately 140,000 people die of stroke in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

To improve efficient, effective diagnosis of patients, New York-based Ambra Health recently formed a partnership with Menlo Park, Calif.-based Rapid, which provides a stroke-imaging platform. Now Ambra Health customers will have access to a cloud deployment of the Rapid stroke-imaging software and secure sharing of Rapid images across networks that use Ambra Health’s image exchange capabilities. Rapid’s stroke-imaging platform is installed in more than 1,400 hospitals, according to an announcement.

Morris Panner, CEO at Ambra Health, tells AXIS Imaging News that, aided by this new cloud-based deployment model, a multifacility Ambra Health customer can run data through the Rapid platform without having to maintain Rapid servers locally at each location. This, he says, will ultimately support more efficient delivery of clinical information and insight about patients to physicians.

“Our core goal was to bring Rapid’s advanced [artificial intelligence] stroke detection capabilities to as many [people] as easily as possible,” Panner says.  “By providing a cloud architecture and integration, we can deliver this as part of a remote workflow—while patients are in transit to a treatment center—and/or eliminate a need for any on-site server so that any facility can access this easily and quickly.”

The new deployment model allows imaging to be viewed “almost instantaneously” at any of a healthcare organization’s facilities, according to Panner. “Our zero-footprint, web-based, and mobile imaging viewer enables reading and viewing studies anywhere, making it more practical than ever to provide sudden stroke care to rural and remote areas,” he says. “Configurable, enhanced, and automated image routing and workflows make it simple for orders to be processed, along with instant syncing of personal health information.”

Deploying Rapid’s software with Ambra Health’s image management suite, both of which have FDA approval, will give physicians and researchers the information they need to transfer patients across facilities, enroll patients in clinical trials, and reduce the length of time it takes to treat patients, according to Ambra Health.

Panner tells AXIS that three U.S. healthcare facilities are currently using this deployment model.

Aine Cryts is a contributing writer for AXIS Imaging News.