Four hours at most – yet patients often wait much longer. And that can cost lives. In the United Kingdom, no more than four hours should pass before a suspected case of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is clarified—because timely diagnosis can save lives. German guidelines at least call for a timely assessment.
Yet when you visit hospitals and speak with physicians, you see the waiting lists. "We realized very early on how large the gap actually is," says Sven Mischkewitz, HPI alumnus and co-founder of ThinkSono. "Patients wait for hours, sometimes even days. The availability of ultrasound simply doesn’t meet the demand."
The problem is structural. To reliably rule out thrombosis, an ultrasound examination is required - and that requires specially trained personnel. Such specialists are in short supply, particularly in smaller hospitals, rural areas, and during nights and weekends. The scan itself only takes a few minutes. But because trained staff are not always available, patients often face long waiting times.
Deep vein thrombosis is among the most common preventable causes of death in hospitals. Every year, more people die from untreated thrombosis than from road traffic accidents. Clinical risk can only be reduced in one way: every suspected case must be clarified within hours.
Making ultrasound diagnostics accessible
This is exactly where ThinkSono comes in. The idea: make ultrasound diagnostics accessible so that examinations no longer have to be performed exclusively by specially trained specialists. The company was founded in London in 2016 and has also been based in Potsdam since 2017.
With ThinkSono Guidance, the team developed the world’s first AI-powered software that guides users without specialized ultrasound training step by step through a DVT examination. The images are then transmitted digitally to specialists, who review and interpret them remotely.
Technologically, many challenges have been solved. The real difficulty lay elsewhere. "What frustrated us most as a tech team wasn’t the medical challenge,” says Mischkewitz. "It was the structures." Those who use the software - such as nurses - are not the ones responsible for purchasing decisions. Those who control the budget do not use the software themselves. And the greatest benefit is for patients, who have no say in the process.
At the same time, procedures are lengthy: "Regulatory approval and market access in healthcare are designed for large corporations, not for startups. Waiting several months is still considered ‘fast’."
ThinkSono is approved for clinical use in Europe. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated ThinkSono a Breakthrough Device, an award given to particularly significant medical innovations. The approval process there is still ongoing. In the United Kingdom, the solution is already being used in routine clinical practice.
Looking ahead, the team is thinking even bigger. "We want to fundamentally change thrombosis diagnostics," says Mischkewitz. "Ultrasound for suspected DVT should be available anytime, quickly, and everywhere—not only in hospitals." The goal is to make it accessible in general practices, care facilities, emergency departments, and rural regions as well.
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