Providence Health Care Ventures and Ventripoint Partner to Validate AI-Enabled Cardiac Imaging at St. Paul’s Hospital 

New collaboration aims to reduce cardiac MRI wait times and expand access to advanced heart diagnostics in urban and remote communities 

Providence Health Care Ventures (PHC Ventures) and Ventripoint Diagnostics Ltd. announced today a collaboration to validate Ventripoint’s VMS+™ technology at St. Paul’s Hospital (SPH). The initiative will assess how artificial intelligence-enhanced echocardiography could reduce lengthy MRI wait times by enabling accurate cardiac assessment earlier in the diagnostic process, potentially allowing many patients to avoid MRI scans entirely. 

Until now, cardiac MRI has often been the only option for obtaining the precise heart measurements needed to guide treatment decisions. VMS+™ uses AI to generate 3-D heart models from standard 2-D echocardiography images, providing cardiac measurements that closely match those of cardiac MRI -the current gold standard for accuracy. The technology is both FDA-cleared and Health Canada-licensed, and runs on existing ultrasound equipment, allowing hospitals and clinics to expand advanced cardiac imaging capacity without purchasing new scanners. 

Building on Proven Clinical Results 

Ventripoint’s technology has already been implemented at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre (University Health Network, Toronto) and evaluated in clinical studies at Mayo Clinic, where it demonstrated clinical agreement between echo-derived and MRI-derived cardiac measurements. These studies showed the potential to provide MRI-level diagnostic accuracy using standard echocardiography, significantly improving accessibility and affordability of advanced cardiac imaging. 

The collaboration with PHC Ventures will build on these results by validating VMS+™ in real-world clinical workflows at St. Paul’s Hospital, home to one of Western Canada’s leading cardiac programs. St. Paul’s Hospital’s Cardiology and Advanced Cardiac Imaging teams will assess VMS+™ performance across routine echocardiography and MRI protocols, comparing measurements with cardiac MRI results and evaluating accuracy, workflow integration, and health-system impact, including potential reductions in MRI referrals, shorter wait times, and cost savings. 

“This technology helps identify which patients truly need an MRI and which can be safely assessed using a standard echocardiogram,” said Brian Simmers, President of PHC Ventures. “By doing so, we can reduce MRI wait times, lower costs, and provide faster access to high-quality cardiac care.” 

“MRI remains the gold standard for cardiac imaging, but it’s not always within reach for every patient,” explains Dr. Robert Moss, Physician Lead in Echocardiography at St. Paul’s Hospital. “The promise of AI-enhanced echocardiography like VMS+™ is that it could bring MRI-level precision to a much more accessible tool. That means faster diagnoses, better treatment decisions, and ultimately, improved outcomes for patients; especially in communities where access to advanced imaging is limited.” 

Expanding Access Beyond Urban Centres 

Because VMS+™ augments conventional ultrasound systems, it has significant potential to bring advanced cardiac diagnostics to rural and Indigenous communities, where access to MRI is often limited or requires long-distance travel. By enabling near-MRI-level accuracy at the point-of-care, this approach could reduce unnecessary patient transfers and allow local healthcare providers to monitor cardiac health more effectively, addressing a critical gap in equitable access to advanced imaging. 

“Our vision is to make high-quality cardiac imaging available wherever an echo machine exists,” said Hugh MacNaught, President and CEO of Ventripoint. “Partnering with PHC Ventures and the St. Paul’s cardiac team allows us to implement VMS+™ in a world-class setting and demonstrate its potential to improve cardiac care delivery across diverse healthcare settings ranging from major urban hospitals to remote communities.  The implementation is intended to serve as a foundation for innovative care delivery that promises rapid, accessible, affordable cardiac imaging in local settings enabling improved patient outcomes” 

The collaboration is expected to begin November 2025 with implementation in early 2026. 

About Ventripoint Diagnostics Ltd. 

Ventripoint develops AI-driven cardiac imaging tools that transform 2-D echocardiograms into 3-D measurements, providing MRI levels of accuracy for all four heart chambers. Its flagship VMS+™ platform is cleared by the U.S. FDA and licensed by Health Canada, enabling accurate, efficient cardiac assessment without the need for specialized scanners. 

More information: ventripoint.com