After two successful iterations of the Echovation Challenge in 2016 and 2017, the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) is once again hosting a challenge to help achieve our mission of accelerating innovation and shaping the future of cardiovascular ultrasound. This ASE initiative provides a platform and forum for ASE members, along with others in the entire medical/scientific community, to offer ground-breaking solutions to the challenges that face cardiovascular ultrasound and cardiac imaging as a whole.

Challenge 2018: Echo at the Speed of Life

Cardiovascular ultrasound is an exceptional clinical tool used to help provide insight into all aspects of cardiovascular disease. In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing healthcare environment, it has become critically important for clinicians to quickly and accurately diagnose patients, so that targeted, effective, and personalized treatments can be chosen and begun.

The Challenge Objective

The overall objective for the Echovation Challenge is to showcase innovations in cardiovascular ultrasound technology that have the potential for faster diagnoses, optimal decision making, and improved quality and value for patients dealing with a variety of cardiovascular diseases.

While the Echovation Challenge is open to ANY innovations in the cardiac imaging realm that may achieve these goals, this year we are particularly interested in solutions within the following areas:

1. Cost-effective imaging pathways: Complex disease states often require a team approach to establish a diagnosis and formulate a treatment plan, requiring experts of various imaging modalities and collaboration among specialists for optimal patient outcomes. However, in this era of value-based payment models, finding ways to more efficiently integrate complementary modalities will be crucial to success.
2. Automated Quantitative Echo: Echo must continuously improve its quantitative techniques in order to keep pace with other modalities. Additionally, automation of existing techniques will be critical to improving efficiency, reproducibility, and accuracy.
3. Artificial intelligence and computational modeling: Exponential growth in computational speeds has led to development of cognitive techniques. The use of these computational techniques for transforming the echo images and data reports into a dashboard that provides disease blueprints that can eventually model treatment options would be an important breakthrough.  
4. Workflow innovations: In any busy cardiovascular imaging lab, there are always numerous challenges to efficiency, such as scheduling and throughput issues, contrast administration, education and training needs, and ergonomic concerns. Fostering wide-scale adoption of innovative solutions and best practices for such common struggles continues to be an important goal for ASE and the Echovation Challenge.

Submissions may include innovations that have already been established or may be in development in echocardiography laboratories and medical institutions throughout the United States and across the world. The Echovation Challenge is designed to encourage, spotlight, and ultimately promulgate advances in the cardiovascular imaging field. In addition, ASE hopes to facilitate multidisciplinary networking and collaboration within the field of cardiovascular imaging, linking researchers, industry, labs, engineers and thought-leaders to share information and educate one another.

The Challenge Breakthrough

ASE hopes to discover and promote the best practices and processes in an effort to enhance the diagnostic capabilities of cardiovascular ultrasound while maintaining excellence in patient care. To discover the best utilization of human and capital resources along with the incorporation of novel technologies, including but not limited to probe design, image visualization, computational modeling, myocardial mechanics, contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS), data analytics, miniaturized ultrasound devices, smartphone and mobile imaging technologies, and therapy planning.

What You Can Do To Get Engaged

• Click “Watch the Challenge" above to be notified of any status updates to the challenge.
• Click "Yes Sign Me Up!" above to register for the 2018 challenge. You will be notified of any status updates and be able to create an entry to the challenge when you are ready.
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