NFL: Advancing Concussion Diagnosis
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NFL: Advancing Concussion Diagnosis

Source: NFL Play Smart Play Safe

In 2013, GE and the NFL teamed up to launch the GE-NFL Head Health Initiative, a four-year, $60 million collaboration to accelerate diagnosis and improve treatment for traumatic brain injury.

The initiative’s three-part Head Health Challenge open innovation program allocated $20 million for awarding grants to scientists, academics, entrepreneurs and other experts with leading ideas.

BrainScope used support from the Head Health Challenge to develop a new hand-held device that also has the potential to transform front-line care of head injuries.

BrainScope’s Ahead 300 headset and smartphone uses “sophisticated algorithms" to analyze patients with head injuries. It’s a quick test that is intended to provide “a rapid, objective assessment of the likelihood of the presence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in patients who present with mild symptoms at the point of care."

It was built in part through grant support from the GE-NFL Head Health Challenge. The U.S. Department of Defense also collaborated on the project.

In September 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave the green light to BrainScope to begin marketing the Ahead 300.