McLaren Health Care and its McLaren Heart & Vascular Institute have launched a first-of-its-kind cardiovascular screening program in Michigan to strengthen and expand its ability to identify patients’ risk for heart disease earlier and connect them with timely, appropriate care.
Launched in partnership with Bunkerhill Health and its AI-powered Carebricks platform, the program applies its technology to patients’ clinical data already available to McLaren through those patients’ routine chest CT scans previously performed for other medical reasons.
The platform’s FDA-cleared clinical algorithms detect and measure incidental coronary artery calcium (iCAC) and incidental aortic valve calcium (iAVC), indicators for the presence and development of coronary heart disease and aortic stenosis, common forms of heart disease that worsen over time if left untreated. McLaren has already launched the process of scanning routine chest CTs from the past 12 months, and early results have yielded remarkable findings.
McLaren is the first Michigan health system — and one of just five in the nation — to deploy AI-powered aortic valve calcium detection on routine chest CT scans. Bunkerhill’s AVC algorithm is the first FDA-cleared solution for detecting and evaluating aortic valve calcium in routine chest CTs.
McLaren Heart & Vascular Institute.
Image Courtesy of McLaren Health Care
“Launching this innovative, AI-powered cardiovascular screening program further reflects our commitment to preventive, data-driven care, especially at a time when heart disease remains the leading cause of death and a growing public health crisis,” said Dr. Samer Kazziha, Chief Medical Director of the McLaren Heart & Vascular Institute. “By using the clinical information already available to us, this program enables us to identify patients who may benefit from earlier follow-up, often before symptoms appear, and ensures they are connected to the right care at the right time — helping to close critical gaps in detection, improving those patients’ long-term outcomes and overall quality of life.”
Previously, to determine their risk for heart disease, patients would often require specialized cardiac CT imaging scans and a time-consuming review by a clinician, which has limited the wide availability of a dedicated screening program. As a result, many opportunities to detect heart disease earlier and begin preventive care have been largely missed.
With iCAC and iAVC, McLaren can now identify these risks using routine chest CT scans ordered for unrelated medical reasons, including lung cancer screening or the evaluation of an infection, among others. These types of scans are ordered much more frequently than specialized cardiac CTs.
This approach allows McLaren to promptly identify and notify more patients for timely follow-up and preventive care without requiring additional and specialized tests or imaging.
Image Courtesy of McLaren Health Care
“McLaren Health Care is showing how health systems can turn advanced AI capabilities into real-world clinical action,” said Nishith Khandwala, Co-Founder and CEO of Bunkerhill Health. “Using Carebricks, McLaren is deploying AI agents that leverage FDA-cleared coronary and aortic valve calcium algorithms to reason across clinical context and help initiate appropriate next steps, while maintaining the flexibility to expand into new use cases over time.”
Launching a screening program of this size and scope would have normally placed added strain on clinical teams, including time spent reviewing charts, checking guidelines, and coordinating follow-up care. Bunkerhill Health’s Carebricks makes this program possible by enabling AI-powered workflows that analyze patients’ records already on file, clinical guidelines, and McLaren’s own care protocols. These workflows support chart review, determine patient follow-up eligibility, and help guide next steps in care, allowing McLaren to expand access to early cardiovascular screening while minimizing added workload for clinicians.
Image Courtesy of McLaren Health Care
Similar dedicated screening programs are currently being performed at select health systems around the country, including the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, West Virginia University Medicine, and the University of Texas Medical Branch, among others.
Learn more about cardiac care services at McLaren Health Care at mclaren.org.
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