9 March, 2022

e-Process Med in search of an alternative to PCR testing for screening COVID patients

Located in BIC Araba and member of Basque Health Cluster e-Process Med has obtained funding from the Consejería de Salud y Familias of Andalusia. The project, entitled “D&SAI: Artificial Intelligence-based COVID screening and diagnosis”, was one of the six projects funded by the Andalusian regional government last year. e-Process Med will collaborate with the Andalusian public health system to obtain a fast and reliable screening of potential COVID patients while reducing costs.

 

D&SAI: Artificial Intelligence-based COVID screening and diagnosis

D&S-COVID is a predictive algorithm based on artificial intelligence (AI), which uses anamnesis and epidemiological questionnaires to detect COVID patients with high sensitivity but low specificity. Initially funded by SPRI in 2020, this solution will undergo a clinical study in Andalusia to implement it correctly in a real healthcare environment before being launched on the market.

How does it work?

This public-private collaborative project is expected to provide an innovative diagnostic method to assist in the identification of COVID-19 negative patients. It is a multicentre prospective clinical study where the aim is to test whether a surface antigen test on nasopharyngeal exudate together with D&S-COVID has the same efficacy in detecting real negative cases as a PCR test. If true, it would reduce time (a PCR takes at least 3 hours) and resources (both material and personnel).

D&S-COVID allies

With the collaboration of FIGIBICA, e-Process Med will be able to validate and improve this solution in different hospitals in the province of Cadiz before its definitive launch. Both the Clinical Management Units of Infectious Diseases of the University Hospital of Puerto Real and Internal Medicine of the University Hospital Puerta del Mar have experience in this field, having participated in more than 10 studies and trials since the beginning of the pandemic.

Duration

The project will be carried out together with the Fundación para la Gestión Biomédica de Cádiz (FIGIBICA) and will last 24 months. The project aims to optimise the D&S-COVID diagnostic solution, improving the management of COVID patients in hospitals, especially in those areas without resources or personnel to carry out PCR tests.

About e-Process Med
The headquarters of this company can be found in the Alava Technology Park. They work on digitalising medical processes, making them easier to understand and more manageable for both healthcare staff and patients. The primary intention is to optimise the health-disease process and operational efficiency, such as reducing the workload associated with administrative tasks in order to improve the quality of healthcare.

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