Cardiovascular disease continues to be one of the most significant health challenges both nationally and globally. Encompassing heart attacks, heart failure, and other serious conditions, it is the leading cause of death worldwide, responsible for nearly half of all deaths in Europe and around one in three in Malta.
Wouldn鈥檛 it help if patients can benefit from cardiac risk prediction, earlier disease detection and personalised treatment plans?
A new UM project is in fact promoting personalised and preventive healthcare through the use of smart technology.
By integrating AI with widely used devices such as smartwatches and smartphones, the project aims to bring heart monitoring into people's homes and hands, making it easier to detect early warning signs and safeguard their health.
Research project CAIRED (Cardiovascular Artificial Intelligence: e-Health for Diabetes), led by Dr Kenneth Scerri from the Faculty of Engineering at UM, will lead to more awareness of health issues.
The project has recently been awarded funding by NGO Beating Hearts Malta through RIDT, the University鈥檚 Research Innovation and Development Trust.
Doctors can detect signs of cardiovascular disease using a multi-lead ECG to record the electrical activity of the heart, and thanks to the popularity of smartwatches, a simpler version of the test that captures heart data from one position on the body (single-lead ECG), can now be recorded at home.
The project began with Dr Liam Butler during his time lecturing in the US, and he has continued to develop the concept since returning to Malta.
The research involves analysing ECG recordings from a large and diverse group of individuals, both with and without diagnosed heart conditions. Using data from trusted medical databases, the aim is to train the AI to detect subtle changes in heart activity that could signal risk, even in people who appear healthy.
The team is working with "explainable AI", which not only predicts the likelihood of cardiovascular disease but also highlights the specific parts of the ECG that contribute to the result. This makes the process more transparent and easier for users to understand.
Their ultimate goal is to develop a user-friendly tool that works with smartwatches or smartphones, allowing people to take a short ECG reading and receive feedback on their heart health directly from their device.
With explainable AI, the system also helps users understand why they are at risk, empowering them to take control of their heart health.
Looking to the future, the team is planning a follow-up initiative called CAIRED Two. Though not yet funded, the project aims to move ECG-AI technology from the lab to everyday use by embedding it into smart devices.
The vision is for users to not only record an ECG on their smartwatch but also instantly sync it to their phone and receive a clear, on-the-go health update.
