S1E27: AI-Enhanced Ultrasound for Early Disease Detection | HealthTech2Care Podcast with Bert Fernandez

HealthTech2Care Podcast featuring Ilker Hacihaliloglu, Engineer, Professor, Co-Founder & CTO of PONS Ilker Hacihaliloglu (Guest): 🌐 Website: https://www.ponstech.co 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilkerh  Bert Fernandez (Host): 🌐 Website: https://www.healthtech2care.com 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bert-fernandez 📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HealthTech2Care 🎙 In this episode, Ilker Hacihaliloglu shares how a personal loss led to founding PONS—and why they're making early disease detection more accessible and equitable. PONS pairs handheld ultrasound with image enhancement and bias-resistant AI, giving clinicians clearer insights—even when patients scan themselves at home. Ilker explains how most AI fails across different populations, and how PONS standardizes every scan into a common domain to eliminate bias by age, BMI, gender, or geography. We also dive into real-world pilots with Mayo Clinic, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and Rutgers—and how PONS supports imaging in teleradiology, outpatient centers, and decentralized trials. ⏱️ Timestamps: 00:00 The personal story behind PONS: Losing their father to a preventable heart attack 01:49 The rise of point-of-care ultrasound and why home monitoring is the future 03:58 Why early-stage detection is the key—and why AI needs new kinds of data 06:29 Making ultrasound viable for early-stage detection: image enhancement, scaling, and AI 10:59 How PONS improves diagnostic accuracy without contrast agents or expensive machines 14:16 Tackling data bias: standardizing ultrasound for all demographics and geographies 17:01 Building trust with clinicians through validation and partnerships (e.g., Mayo Clinic) 22:00 Applications beyond hospitals: imaging centers, tele-radiology, and clinical trials 🔑 Highlights:  The personal story that inspired PONS' mission Why most AI imaging models break outside their training population How PONS enhances ultrasound images without contrast agents A novel method that increases image clarity and dataset size Domain-aligned AI that performs across age, gender, BMI, and geography Real-world pilots with Mayo Clinic, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and Rutgers Broad use cases: at-home care, outpatient imaging, teleradiology, and trials 👉 Learn more about PONS' AI‐powered imaging solutions: https://www.pons.ai 🔔 Subscribe to our HealthTech2Care YouTube channel for more in‐depth conversations with healthcare innovators: https://www.youtube.com/@HealthTech2Care #MedicalImaging #BiasFreeAI #DigitalHealth #EarlyDetection #HealthcareInnovation #PONS #HealthTech2Care