Detroit-based Henry Ford Health has reduced stroke treatment times and improved patient outcomes with RapidAI, an artificial intelligence tool that accelerates CT scan analysis and care team coordination.
The platform flags large vessel occlusions and delivers images and alerts to clinicians’ mobile devices, enabling near-instant decision-making and parallel workflows, according to an Aug. 12 report from the American Medical Association. Since adopting RapidAI in 2021, the system has decreased median door-to-puncture time by about 20 minutes — roughly a 40% reduction — and increased the percentage of stroke patients discharged home to 57.4% in 2024, compared with 48.8% at peer comprehensive stroke centers.
RapidAI’s rollout included targeted physician engagement, hands-on demonstrations and workflow integration to build confidence among stroke neurologists, neurointerventionalists, emergency physicians, nurses and anesthesiologists.
The technology has also reduced hospital stays for thrombectomy patients by about 1.5 days while allowing more procedures to be performed despite rising case complexity. Leaders said the shorter stays and better outcomes lowered direct and indirect costs, while helping keep appropriate patients at community hospitals rather than transferring them.
