Hospitals Are Betting On AI To Transform Neurological Diagnosis
ARC (Accelerate, Redesign, Collaborate), Sheba's innovation arm, has already become one of the most active hospital-led incubators of medical technology. This new venture is part of its wider ambition to pull medicine closer to patients — to close the distance and shorten the delays that have long defined access to specialist care.
'The collaboration with Revealense exemplifies Sheba and ARC's unique innovation model — which brings together clinicians on the ground, technological excellence and robust infrastructure to establish entrepreneurial initiatives,' said Avner Halperin, CEO of Sheba Impact at ARC, in the hospital's press release.
The Urgency
The pressure of autism assessments is real, so the appeal of such technology is easy to understand. Autism evaluations can take months, sometimes years, and the wait can feel endless for families. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in 2020 about one in 36 children aged 8 was identified with autism, and by 2022 that number had risen to one in 31. While parents are often urged to seek help as early as possible, they usually face year-long delays before receiving answers. ADHD, too, has seen a surge in diagnoses, particularly during the pandemic, when families and schools began paying closer attention to attention disorders and their impact on learning.
For parents navigating these waits, a tool that could offer a reliable first step from home is compelling. Earlier assessments mean earlier interventions, which are often the difference between a child thriving or falling behind. 'Beyond dramatically reducing the time needed for diagnosis, the venture also aims to enable earlier detection of syndromes, potentially allowing for initial assessments of autism and other conditions as early as 6 to 12 months of age,' explained Dr. Omer Bar Yosef, Director of the Child Development Center at Sheba Medical Center.
Between Potential And Proof
But bringing AI into such sensitive territory is not without challenges. Because Autism and ADHD assessments depend on a mix of structured interviews, observation across different environments and careful review of developmental history, assessing both conditions is rarely straightforward. So, without any doubts, turning that into an algorithm is quite complex and critics argue that context matters as much as raw behavior. A toddler's eye movements or gestures, for example, can mean different things depending on culture, language, or environment.
There are also several regulatory hurdles to cross. In the United States, for example, the Food and Drug Administration has made clear that AI-driven diagnostic tools will face strict scrutiny, especially those that involve children. In Europe, the AI Act imposes additional requirements for high-risk medical applications.
Although what Sheba and Revealense are proposing could reshape access to care, gaining approval across markets is a different game altogether and is often a long process. But both teams say they are well-prepared to go through the rigorous standards designed to protect patients and are confident that their experience in the space sets them apart from the herd.
Hospitals As AI Innovators
While this technology could potentially transform medical care globally, the bigger story here is about how hospitals themselves are starting to lead this kind of innovation. Sheba, for example, has built a portfolio of clinician-led startups that, according to the hospital, have already produced exits valued at nearly a billion dollars, with profits reinvested into new projects. Its ARC network now also stretches to more than 300 hospitals across 12 countries.
Sheba isn't alone in pushing hospitals into the innovation arena. In another example, researchers at Seoul-based Gangnam Severance Hospital and Yonsei University recently published a review on how generative AI might help not only with autism diagnosis but also with personalized treatment plans in real time. They described AI not as an optional add-on but as something that could work alongside clinicians — a partner rather than a product.
Increasingly, hospitals are diving into the world of R&D and creating new tools and systems to make medical care even better. That clinician-led model, which blends physician insight with entrepreneurial energy, is catching on very quickly and it could redefine how healthcare systems innovate going forward. As Dov Donin, cofounder and CEO of Revealense, noted, 'It's not just a new technology — it's a paradigm shift that can improve and even save lives, while elevating the entire diagnostics landscape.'
But if at-home neurological diagnostics do reach mainstream use in 2026, Sheba and Revealense will be remembered for pioneering a shift in how medicine is delivered. Even if the path is slower, the venture reflects how hospitals are beginning to see AI not as an external product to purchase, but as an internal capability to shape. For families waiting months for answers, that shift holds real promise.
For families waiting months for answers, that change holds promise. For healthcare itself, it suggests a new era where hospitals are not just sites of care but laboratories for the future of medicine.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
A cosmic murder mystery: Scientists spot supernova of star violently stripped to the bone
Israeli and American scientists have uncovered a never-before-seen type of supernova, shedding light on how stars produce and expel heavy elements like silicon and sulfur during their violent deaths. Israeli and American scientists discovered a never-before-seen type of supernova, one that blasts out heavy elements like silicon and sulfur from the body of a dying star, a new study reveals. The findings of this study were published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Nature, and provide evidence for a long theorized part of stellar anatomy. All of this was made possible by witnessing an extremely violent and unusual death of a star, the result of which allowed scientists to look deeper than ever before. Of violence and onions: The death of a star and supernovae To understand what exactly happened, it's important to understand what a supernova is and, before that, to understand what a star is. Stars are, at their core, massive and extremely hot balls of gas, specifically hydrogen and helium. These two elements are very common - in fact, they are so common that they make up almost all matter in the universe. So where does everything else come from? To oversimplify complex astrophysics and chemistry, when these hydrogen and helium come together, they can heat up and new elements can be formed - if the circumstances are right. Stars are where this happens. These giant balls of gas possess cores that are a lot more solid, specifically made of iron. The cores are active and are fueled by a process of energy production, which sees the lighter elements to form heavier ones. This is known by nuclear fusion, and it is this process that keeps the star hot, allowing gases to expand while simultaneously drawing its mass toward the core in a delicate gravitational balance. So that's how some of the heavier elements are made, but others still need more heat - hotter than what a star's core can usually handle. What's more, all those heavier elements are still stuck in the stars. How do they get out and expand into the universe, forming planets and asteroids and more? The answer is that the star has to die. When the star can no longer produce energy, it collapses in on itself. When this happens, it results in a massive explosion, one of the most powerful forces of energy in the universe - a supernova. This fuses some of those heavy elements together to make even heavier ones, and all of them get blasted out into the cosmos. This process is essential to the function of the universe, allowing everything to keep expanding and ultimately sending forth the building blocks of the universe's continued expansion. In other words, everything in the universe is made of stardust, and supernovas are what send that stardust out there to accumulate and make new things. The remnants of that progenitor star are still there, condensing together to form a neutron star or a black hole, or maybe even a diffuse nebula of sorts. So that's what scientists have already known. But there is more to this story. See, stars are a lot like onions and - they have layers. The heavier elements occupy the inner layers, getting heavier and heavier as they get closer to the iron core. The massive outer layers are where those lighter elements, like hydrogen and helium, are. But this was only a theory. Studying a supernova can be hard, as while the stars that go supernova are always 10-100 times heavier than the Sun, the explosion happens in a fraction of a second. Even still, it's possible to observe the bright light from the supernova for some time - even weeks can go by without the light fading. But until now, scientists have only ever seen the traces of light elements like hydrogen and helium, rather than anything heavier. But all of that changed with this study The now deceased star in question is SN2021yfj, a massive star far heavier than our Sun. In September 2021, the flare from its supernova was spotted by Dr. Steve Schulze, a former member of Weizmann Institute of Science's astrophysics team and now a researcher at Northwestern University. Using the Zwicky Transient Facility telescope in California, Schulze and his team did a spectral analysis. What this means is that they looked at the different colors of the flare's light. Each color represents a different element, and by observing which colors are present in its spectrum, scientists can figure out what elements are present. In other words, this is how you can use light and colors to figure out what things are made of. This isn't exactly easy, though, as intrusive obstacles can get in the way of a spectral analysis. In Schulze's case, those obstacles came in the form of clouds, stopping researchers from getting a clear enough image. But someone at the University of California, Berkeley, managed to get it. And the results were shocking. Normally, when studying a supernova, one expects to see the usual suspects of light and abundant elements, like helium, carbon, oxygen, and so on. But that's not what they found. Instead, the light fired out by SN2021yfj with its dying breaths consisted largely of sulfur, silicon, and argon. That's not supposed to happen. So how could the supernova just not have the lighter elements, and instead have the far heavier ones? A cosmic murder mystery: How a star was stripped to its core before death by explosion The conclusion Schulze came to was that something went wrong. Massive stars like SN2021yfj are, as mentioned previously, like onions - they have layers. And some of those layers have been peeled off. This itself isn't unheard of. Stripped stars, as they are known, have been seen before. But those usually have layers made of helium, carbon, or oxygen - exposed when the outermost hydrogen layers were lost somehow. But SN2021yfj must have had even those layers stripped away. That's not like just peeling a few layers off an onion. Rather, it's more like stripping it to the bone - and that's the part that's unheard of. 'This star lost most of the material that it produced throughout its lifetime,' Schulze said in a statement. 'So we could only see the material formed during the months right before its explosion. Something very violent must have happened to cause that.' This is not a thing that should happen. As noted by Weizmann's Dr. Ofer Yaron, a leading expert on supernovae, this level of deep exposure is a major challenge to prevailing theories on how these layers fall away. Something happened that caused this star to die like this. But what? Several theories were put forward. A companion star could have theoretically exerted force that caused the layers to be stripped away. Another explosion or strong stellar winds could have been the culprit. But the main suspect is actually SN2021yfj itself. The star's core likely produced so much heat that the nuclear fusion caused an incredibly powerful burst of energy. This then may have caused the star's layers to be blown apart, sending the outer layers away. This, essentially, means that SN2021yfj ripped itself apart. But this may have happened before. In fact, the shed layers may have collided into one another, or into another layer that had been blown out a previous time, and that resulted in another explosion. But how much does this factor into the death of SN2021yfj? That, currently, is still a mystery. But what is sure is that no one has ever had the chance to look at stellar anatomy this closely, going deeper than anyone has gone before. 'It's always surprising – and deeply satisfying – to discover a completely new kind of physical phenomenon,' said Prof. Avishay Gal-Yam, whose research group in Weizmann's Particle Physics and Astrophysics Department focuses on understanding how the elements are formed in the universe. 'As soon as I saw the data Dr. Schulze sent me, it was obvious we were witnessing something no one had ever seen before. 'Once we identified the spectral signatures of silicon, sulfur, and argon, it was clear this was a major step forward: Peering into the depths of a giant star helps us understand where the heavy elements come from. Every atom in our bodies and in the world around us was created somewhere in the universe and went through countless transformations over billions of years before arriving at its current place, so tracing its origin and the process that created it is incredibly difficult. Now it appears that the inner layers of giant stars are production sites for some of these important, relatively heavy elements.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
New malaria drug for newborn babies offers hope to parents, health workers in Uganda
Alice Nekesa did not know she was infected with malaria-causing parasites until it was too late. She was in the fourth month of pregnancy last year when she started bleeding, a miscarriage later attributed to untreated malaria in her. The Ugandan farmer said recently that she regretted the loss of what would have been her second child 'because I didn't discover malaria and treat it early'. Variations of such cases are commonly reported by Ugandan health workers who witness stillbirths or feverish babies that die within days from undiagnosed malaria. The deaths are part of a wider death toll tied to the mosquito-borne disease, the deadliest across Africa, but one easily treated in adults who seek timely medical care. Until recently, a major gap in malaria treatment was how to care for newborns and infants infected with malaria who weren't strong enough to receive regular medication. That changed last month when Swiss medical regulators approved medicine from the Basel-based pharmaceutical company Novartis for babies weighing between 2 and 5 kilograms (about two to five kilograms). Swissmedic said the treatment, a sweet-tasting tablet that dissolves into a syrup when dropped into liquids like breast milk, was approved in coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO) under a fast-track authorisation process to help developing countries access much-needed treatment. Africa's 1.5 billion people accounted for 95 per cent of an estimated 597,000 malaria deaths worldwide in 2023, according to the WHO. More than three-quarters of those deaths were among children. Related Malaria cases surged to 263 million last year amid stalled progress to stop mosquito-borne illness In Uganda, an east African country of 45 million people, there were 12.6 million malaria cases and nearly 16,000 deaths in 2023. Many were children younger than five and pregnant women, the WHO said. Nigeria, Congo, and Uganda – in that order – are the African countries most burdened by malaria, a parasitic disease transmitted to humans through the bites of infected mosquitoes that thrive and breed in stagnant water. The drug approved by Swiss authorities, known as Coartem Baby in some countries and Riamet Baby in others, is a combination of two antimalarials. It is a lower dose version of a tablet previously approved for other age groups, including for older children. Before Coartem Baby, antimalarial drugs designed for older children were administered to small infants with careful adjustments to avoid overdose or toxicity. Ugandan authorities, who have been working to update clinical guidelines for treating malaria, say the new drug will be rolled out as soon as possible. It is not yet available in public hospitals. How the medicine could change malaria treatment The development of Coartem Baby has given hope to many, with local health workers and others saying the medicine will save the lives of many infants. Ronald Serufusa, the top malaria official for the district of Wakiso, which shares a border with the Ugandan capital of Kampala, said he believes Coartem Baby will be available 'very, very soon' and that one priority is sensitising the people adhering to treatment. Some private pharmacies already have access to Coartem Baby, 'flavored with orange or mango' to make it palatable for infants, he said. Related Scientists discover drug that could make human blood deadly to mosquitos in fight against malaria During the so-called malaria season, which coincides with rainy periods twice a year, long lines of sick patients grow outside government-run health centres across Uganda. Many are often women with babies strapped to their backs. Health workers now are trained to understand that 'malaria can be implicated among newborns,' even when other dangerous conditions like sepsis are present, Serufusa said. 'If they don't expand their investigations to also suspect malaria, then it goes unnoticed,' he said, speaking of health workers treating babies. The Malaria Consortium, a global nonprofit based in London, in a statement described the approval of Coartem Baby as 'a major leap forward for saving the lives of young children in countries affected by malaria'. In addition to Uganda, the drug will be rolled out in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Tanzania, the group said. Related West Nile virus, chikungunya, dengue: Tracking mosquito-borne illnesses across Europe Jane Nabakooza, a pediatrician with Uganda's malaria control programme, said she expects the government will make Coartem Baby available to patients free of charge, even after losing funding when the United States shrank its foreign aid programme earlier this year. Some malaria funding from outside sources, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, remains available for programmes such as indoor spraying to kill mosquitoes that spread the malaria-causing parasite. Because of funding shortages, 'we are focusing on those that are actually prone to severe forms of malaria and malaria deaths, and these are children under five years,' Nabakooza said.
Business Upturn
2 hours ago
- Business Upturn
Fortis Healthcare signs O&M pact with Ekana Group for 550-bed super specialty hospital in Lucknow
By Aditya Bhagchandani Published on August 20, 2025, 22:29 IST Fortis Healthcare Ltd. on Wednesday announced that it has entered into an operations and management (O&M) agreement with Lucknow-based Ekana Group to run a 550-bed greenfield super specialty hospital coming up near Gomti Nagar, Lucknow. Once operational, the hospital will be positioned as a Centre of Excellence for tertiary care services, bringing advanced medical infrastructure and global best practices to Uttar Pradesh's capital. This marks Fortis Healthcare's third major presence in the state, after its facilities in Noida and Greater Noida. Dr. Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, MD & CEO of Fortis Healthcare, said the collaboration is a key step in strengthening the company's footprint: 'Once operational, this new 550-bed super-specialty hospital near Gomti Nagar will significantly enhance access to advanced medical care for the city and its surrounding regions. It underscores our steadfast commitment to expanding high-quality healthcare across the state.' Uday Sinha, promoter of Ekana Group, added: 'We are happy to join hands with one of India's leading healthcare chains to develop a cutting-edge tertiary care hospital, one that will deliver patient care where it's most needed.' Fortis Healthcare currently operates 33 facilities across 11 states with more than 5,700 operational beds, including O&M beds, and a network of over 400 diagnostics labs Ahmedabad Plane Crash Aditya Bhagchandani serves as the Senior Editor and Writer at Business Upturn, where he leads coverage across the Business, Finance, Corporate, and Stock Market segments. With a keen eye for detail and a commitment to journalistic integrity, he not only contributes insightful articles but also oversees editorial direction for the reporting team.
