OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – Methodist is using an artificial intelligence platform to help identify patients with aortic stenosis, a narrowing heart valve that can lead to heart failure, the hospital said. Doctors at Methodist said the condition can become severe in just a few months.
Methodist said a man in his 60s went in for a test for a heart murmur. Registered nurse Cindy Valgora, a structural heart coordinator at Methodist, said he was not scheduled for an appointment for two months until an AI program caught a problem.
\u201cHe actually was treated with a surgical aortic valve, he was treated and recovering before he would have ever even been seen in our usual clinic,\u201d Valgora said.
Dr. Jai Parekh, a structural and interventional cardiologist at Methodist Physicians Clinic, said the challenge is finding the condition among intricate test results.
\u201cThere are a lot of things which get missed in the details of these echocardiograms,\u201d Parekh said.
Methodist uses an AI platform called egnite CardioCare. The platform does not read the scans.
\u201cIt\u2019s just taking the plain language, the English language off of reports, and then categorizing for us so we can reach out to the patients,\u201d Valgora said.
Valgora said the platform sorts patients by severity and flags severe cases for the structural heart team. Staff then take over from there.
\u201cI think it supplements what we do. It never influences our medical decision-making. It never replaces physician judgment,\u201d Parekh said.
Methodist\u2019s new goal is to see flagged patients in one to two weeks and treat them in four to six weeks. The team said that before the program, it took eight to nine weeks from the first visit to treatment.
\u201cGive them a better quality of life before they fall off the cliff,\u201d Parekh said.
Valgora said she makes sure patients know how the AI is used.
\u201cI think once you explain that to patients, they\u2019re like, oh, so that\u2019s how I got in here sooner. And you\u2019re like, yes, yes, that is,\u201d Valgora said.
Methodist said the program has allowed it to see 35% more patients.
\u201cYou forget how this quality of life changes and improves, and we can do that sooner than we used to,\u201d Valgora said.
Methodist said it is one of two hospitals in Nebraska taking part in the American Heart Association\u2019s initiative. The hospital said that as the technology expands, it could also help doctors identify patients with other types of heart valve disease.
Copyright 2026 WOWT. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n