VisualDx Awarded Grant to Advance Global Health and Diagnostic Accuracy in Underserved Regions

The grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will support the deployment of decision support technology and artificial intelligence to enhance care delivery and outcomes in India and Nigeria 

ROCHESTER, NY – January 18, 2023 – VisualDx, an award-winning web-based clinical decision support system, has received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundationto develop diagnostic and surveillance tools to help medical providers improve treatment decisions and outcomes in underserved areas. VisualDx will expand equitable access to its clinical decision support, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools to provide guidance, specialist knowledge, and education for providers in low-resource settings.  

As part of the initiative, VisualDx will support national public health efforts in India and Nigeria by developing country-specific logic for its decision-support platform to enhance surveillance, detection, and triage of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and other rare infectious diseases. The company’s application combines AI/ML image analysis with structured clinical data, information, and questions to educate providers about the presentation and management of NTDs and other similar diseases, and can be tailored to meet the experience level of various users, from community health workers to physicians. It also offers robust tracking and reporting capabilities to study cases, differentials, and outcomes across each country. 

“The public health needs of many rural and underserved areas often go unmet from provider and doctor shortages, and limited access to diagnostics, assistive technology, education, and training,” said Wendemagegn Enbiale, MD, MPH, Ph.D., Global Health Information Officer of VisualDx. “Advances in modern medicine and technology have made it possible to deliver equitable, high-quality information for all patients, regardless of where they live or seek medical attention. With this partnership, we are developing decision support tools to assist primary healthcare providers working in low-resource settings.” 

With a shortage of healthcare providers worldwide, all facing mounting health crises, the demand for local information resources to drive positive outcomes continues to grow. Tropical communities are predominantly and disproportionately impacted by NTDs and other rare infectious diseases, underscoring the need in these communities for modernized clinical and public health tools to help medical professionals and less trained healthcare workers to provide timely and quality care. 

"Our global mission is to improve medical decisions, with timely knowledge and visualization. Improving accuracy throughout the diagnostic journey has never been more important with ongoing and emerging global health crises," said Art Papier, MD, co-founder and CEO of VisualDx. "The continued support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is something we are extremely proud of and see as a testament to the critical role technology like ours can play in improving public health worldwide. We look forward to collaborating on this project like-minded, mission-driven regional partners and scaling our efforts to ensure high-quality patient care is the standard across the globe.” 

This is the second Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant VisualDx has received, following a successful 2020 project  in Botswana to provide an offline version of its clinical decision support tool for users without internet access in remote areas. The support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and recent collaborations with HHS' Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) on the Digital Medical Countermeasures program and the Vermont Department of Health on the Clinician Support Initiativeunderscores VisualDx's over 20-year commitment to improving global health. 

About VisualDx  

VisualDx is an award-winning diagnostic clinical decision support system that has become the standard medical professional resource at more than 50% of U.S. medical schools and more than 2,300 hospitals and clinics worldwide. VisualDx combines problem oriented clinical search with the world’s best curated medical image library, plus medical knowledge from experts and sophisticated machine learning algorithms to help with differential diagnosis, variation, treatment, and patient communication. Our mission is to improve healthcare decision making and reduce diagnostic errors. Learn more at www.visualdx.com.