Two hours of training, a van and an AI guide: heart scans reach the counties that had none

Heart ultrasound scans usually need a trained specialist in a hospital — and rural counties often have neither. In a study to be presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2026, 14 nurses, nursing assistants and CT technicians with no ultrasound experience learned the skill in a two-hour course, then scanned 4,597 volunteers in a mobile unit that visited 10 rural counties in Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi. Software guided their hands in real time while experts at Duke checked every image from afar. The result: 98% of scans captured all six standard views, experts rated more than 99% good enough to measure, and 133 scans flagged serious heart problems the volunteers did not know they had — with 99% of those results returned within three days. The findings are early (a conference study, not yet peer-reviewed), but they point to a simple idea: bring the scan to the patient, not the patient to the scan.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation