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Interview: Potential of voice biomarkers is advancing

Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) is a severe condition in which the heart doesn’t pump blood as efficiently as it should. More than 5 million people in the United States have CHF, the most common diagnosis in hospitalized patients over 65.

Study.com delved into reasons nurses are leaving or looking to leave the occupation.
Study.com delved into reasons nurses are leaving or looking to leave the occupation. - Canva
Study.com delved into reasons nurses are leaving or looking to leave the occupation. - Canva

The use of voice biomarkers (the unique voice signature of an individual) for the early detection of various diseases is at the forefront of medical-grade speech signal processing and artificial intelligence (AI). The potential of voice biomarkers is advancing and opening new opportunities for diagnoses, risk prediction, clinical outcomes, and symptomology. 

To understand the key trends within this promising digital healthcare sector, Digital Journal spoke with Tamir Tal, CEO of Cordio Medical.

Tal explains that by taking advantage of the 83% of men and women 50-64 years of age and 61% of people 65 and older who use smartphones, the ability to access diagnostics at home will be available to millions. 

Digital Journal: What particular heart failure problem are you trying to solve?

Tamir Tal: Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) is a severe condition in which the heart doesn’t pump blood as efficiently as it should. More than 5 million people in the United States have CHF, the most common diagnosis in hospitalized patients over 65.

Clinicians know that when heart failure patients become sick and are admitted to the hospital, there are changes in their voice, like breathlessness, and changes in speech patterns indicative of a congested state. Unfortunately, clinicians cannot evaluate changes in patients’ voices daily, and typically, human ears are not sophisticated enough to detect early changes in voice or speech.

Speech voice signatures are the future of at-home health care diagnostics and will allow aging in place, better economics, and improved mortality. Voice analysis using AI opens new opportunities in healthcare for the diagnosis, risk prediction, and remote monitoring of various clinical outcomes and symptoms.

DJ: How can technology work? 

Tal: Through our sophisticated AI algorithms and one of the largest CHF voice-biomarker databases in healthcare, our HearO ® app analyzes an individual’s unique voice signature to detect changes in lung fluid content before the patient feel them, or the clinician can perceive them. Suppose altered fluid states in the lungs are detected. In that case, an alert immediately sends a message to their clinician, who can take preventative actions – change medications, require an office visit, and counsel.

Simply put, we are use sophisticated AI and algorithms to listen to an individual’s unique voice signature to detect changes in lung fluid content before the patient or the clinician can perceive them.

This means our app can detect and predict short-term risk diagnosing Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) simply by speaking into your smartphone and using your vocal signature as a baseline. If a medical issue is detected, an alert is sent directly to clinicians to an upcoming episode of heart failure decompensation. 

DJ: What is the current status of studies?

Tal: Currently, 250 patients with stable heart failure are using the app at home. Patients open the app and speak the same sentence on their phones daily. If altered fluid states in the lungs are detected, an alert immediately sends a message to their clinician, who can take preventative actions – change medications, require an office visit, and counsel the patient.

A recently published study of outpatients with chronic heart failure preliminarily examined the first 253 patients, representing about 660,000 voice recordings taken daily. The patients suffered 55 qualifying heart failure decompensation events. HearO® demonstrated an 80% sensitivity for predicting a heart failure event in this population. And among those 55 events, the app accurately predicted 44 of them 22 days on average before they happened. 

DJ: How do you think this approach can benefit the medical world?

Tal: Voice biomarkers are the subject of research in cardiology, cancer, Alzheimer’s, cognitive impairment, COVID, and Parkinson’s Disease. In Cardiology, significant advancements are taking place for Congestive Heart Failure (CHF).

In the health tech sector, if you develop something everyone needs, then all you need to do is build it, and the business model will present itself. Heart failure, for example, is one of the world’s most significant diseases, so our solution stands to help a considerable percentage of the world’s population.

Voice biomarkers are the future of medical-grade disease diagnostics and will improve speed, accuracy, and accessibility to millions. Cordio mission is to continue and harness speech processing technology to Improve patient quality of life and mortality while contributing to better health economies. 

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Written By

Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for science news. Tim specializes in science, technology, environmental, business, and health journalism. He is additionally a practising microbiologist; and an author. He is also interested in history, politics and current affairs.

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