On World Heart Day 2026, New Zealand's Heart Foundation committed more than six million dollars to over thirty research projects, placing its faith in artificial intelligence and smartphone technology to untangle a knot that has long frustrated cardiac care: the months patients wait before anyone looks closely at their heart. The investment reflects a quiet reckoning with scarcity — not of will, but of time, equipment, and trained hands — and a belief that smarter tools might do what more resources alone have not. At its core, this is a story about a health system trying to see its patients mo
Heart Foundation backs AI and smart tech to speed cardiac care
Movements you can't see with the eye. Instead of guesswork, we're using data.
Mark
So the Heart Foundation is funding AI research to speed up heart care. What's actually broken right now that these projects are trying to fix?
Mimi
Waiting lists, mainly. Patients in some parts of New Zealand wait months for an echocardiogram—that's the ultrasound scan that tells you if your heart is pumping properly. The imaging services are under real pressure. So the research is trying to solve two problems: get people screened faster so the right patients get scans sooner, and make the scans themselves more efficient so you get more information from each one.
Luke
But how many patients are we talking about? The article says "some parts of New Zealand" wait months, but it doesn't give actual numbers—how many people, how long exactly, what's the current wait time versus the target?
Mimi
That's a fair gap. The article doesn't quantify the waiting list problem. We know it's significant enough that the Heart Foundation is investing six million dollars to address it, but you're right that we don't have the actual numbers.
Mark
Tell me about the smartphone video project. That sounds almost too simple.
Mimi
It's elegant, actually. A researcher named Prashanna Khwaounjoo is testing whether you can film someone's neck with a smartphone camera and use an algorithm to detect tiny movements in the skin caused by blood flow. The algorithm can track movements down to the micron level—far smaller than the eye can see. The idea is to use it as a fast, low-cost screening tool to help clinicians decide who needs a full heart scan urgently.
Luke
Has it been tested on patients yet? The article says he's "trialling" it, but it doesn't say whether it actually works or what the accuracy rates are.
Mimi
Right, it's still in the trial phase. We don't have efficacy data yet. This is research funding to investigate whether it could work, not proof that it does.
Mark
And the other project, the AI for echocardiograms?
Mimi
Debbie Zhao is investigating whether AI can automate some of the manual work that sonographers and cardiologists do now—recognizing and measuring heart structures within the ultrasound images. If it works, it could make each scan more efficient and consistent, and free up capacity so more patients can be scanned.
Luke
Again, is this proven technology or is it still in development?
Mimi
Still in development. She's been awarded a fellowship to investigate it. The article doesn't present any results or pilot data.
Mark
So we're funding the research, not deploying the solution yet.
Mimi
Exactly. This is foundational work. Three cardiologists are also going overseas to train in advanced imaging techniques, which suggests the Foundation is building the expertise that will be needed to implement these technologies once they're developed.
Luke
One more thing—the article mentions other projects like testing medication protocols for ambulance teams and a pill that could replace a pacemaker. Those sound completely different from the AI and smartphone projects. Are they part of the same funding round or separate?
Mimi
Same funding round. The six million dollars is supporting more than thirty projects across different areas of cardiac research. The AI and smartphone diagnostics are the headline, but the funding is broader than that.
El Pulso
- Across New Zealand, patients with failing hearts wait months for echocardiograms, a delay that turns manageable conditions into emergencies.
- A University of Auckland engineer is training an algorithm to read pulse signals from microscopic skin movements in neck videos — a smartphone becoming a cardiac sentinel.
- A cardiologist is developing AI that automates the painstaking manual measurement of heart structures during ultrasound scans, squeezing more diagnostic value from every scan performed.
- Three early-career cardiologists are being sent to Leeds, New York, and Toronto to build the human expertise needed to make these technologies work in practice.
- The Foundation is also funding research into smarter ambulance medications, a pill that may mimic a pacemaker, and safer management of aortic dissection — the full, lethal spectrum of cardiac crisis.
- If the tools prove out, waiting lists measured in months could compress to days, and clinical guesswork could give way to data-driven triage.
On World Heart Day 2026, New Zealand's Heart Foundation committed more than six million dollars to over thirty research projects, placing its faith in artificial intelligence and smartphone technology to untangle a knot that has long frustrated cardiac care: the months patients wait before anyone looks closely at their heart. The investment reflects a quiet reckoning with scarcity — not of will, but of time, equipment, and trained hands — and a belief that smarter tools might do what more resources alone have not. At its core, this is a story about a health system trying to see its patients more clearly, and sooner.
New Zealand's Heart Foundation announced more than six million dollars in 2026 funding for over thirty cardiac research projects, timing the release to World Heart Day on September 29th. The investment is a direct response to a familiar pressure: in many parts of the country, patients wait months for an echocardiogram, the ultrasound scan that reveals whether the heart is pumping and its valves are functioning. The Foundation is betting that artificial intelligence and smartphone technology can ease that bottleneck before it costs more lives.
At the University of Auckland, biomedical engineer Prashanna Khwaounjoo is developing a tool that uses smartphone video of a person's neck to detect heart problems. Blood flow produces tiny skin movements — invisible to the human eye but trackable by his algorithm down to the micron. The aim is a fast, inexpensive screening method that tells clinicians who needs urgent imaging and who can safely wait, reducing unnecessary hospital visits while accelerating care for those who need it most.
Cardiologist Debbie Zhao is approaching the same bottleneck from inside the imaging suite. Her fellowship research focuses on AI that can automatically identify and measure heart structures during echocardiograms, reducing the manual analysis that currently burdens sonographers and cardiologists. If each scan yields more information with less effort, the existing system can serve more patients without requiring more machines or staff.
The funding round extends beyond imaging. It also supports research into better heart attack medications for ambulance crews, a pill designed to replicate pacemaker function, and improved blood pressure management following aortic dissection. Three early-career cardiologists — Amy Colclough, Rahul Gandhi, and Tim Oh — have received overseas fellowships to train in advanced cardiac imaging and minimally invasive techniques at institutions in Leeds, New York, and Toronto, building the expertise that emerging technologies will eventually demand.
The Heart Foundation's Medical Director, Dr. Gerry Devlin, frames the moment as one of genuine possibility: AI and advanced imaging are opening new ways to understand and detect heart disease earlier. The research is ongoing, but the scale of the commitment signals institutional confidence that the months-long waits defining cardiac care today are not inevitable — and that the tools to shorten them may already be within reach.
New Zealand's Heart Foundation is betting more than six million dollars on a wager that artificial intelligence and smartphone cameras might do what the health system has struggled to do for years: get heart patients diagnosed and treated faster.
The announcement came on World Heart Day, September 29th, and it signals a shift in how the country's cardiac researchers are thinking about the bottleneck that has become routine in heart care. Patients in some parts of New Zealand wait months for an echocardiogram—the ultrasound scan that shows whether the heart is pumping properly and the valves are working. The funding will support more than thirty research projects and training fellowships, many of them focused on using technology to triage patients more efficiently and extract more diagnostic information from the scans that do happen.
One of the most striking projects is happening at the University of Auckland, where biomedical engineer Prashanna Khwaounjoo is testing whether a smartphone video of someone's neck could flag serious heart problems before they become emergencies. The idea is deceptively simple: blood flow creates tiny movements in the skin of the neck—movements so small the human eye cannot detect them. Khwaounjoo's algorithm can track these movements down to the micron level, analyzing the pulse signal without any invasive equipment. The goal is to create a fast, low-cost screening tool that helps clinicians decide who needs a full heart scan urgently and who can wait. For patients, the payoff could be fewer unexpected hospital visits, clearer information about their own heart health, and faster access to care when it matters.
Across campus, cardiologist Debbie Zhao is pursuing a related problem from a different angle. She has been awarded a research fellowship to investigate how artificial intelligence can make echocardiograms themselves more efficient and accurate. The technology would work alongside the ultrasound scans, using AI to recognize and measure heart structures automatically, reducing the manual work that sonographers and cardiologists currently do by hand. Because demand for echocardiograms has strained imaging services across the country, making each scan yield more information could mean more patients get assessed sooner. Zhao frames it plainly: if the technology works, it could help more New Zealanders access timely treatment by making the existing system more efficient.
Dr. Gerry Devlin, the Heart Foundation's Medical Director, describes the opportunity in broader terms. Artificial intelligence and advanced imaging are opening new ways to unlock medical information, he says—ways that could improve how doctors understand heart disease, detect it earlier, and deliver better care. The 2026 funding round also supports research into more effective medication protocols for ambulance teams treating heart attacks, a pill that might replicate what a pacemaker does, and better management of blood pressure after aortic dissection, one of the deadliest heart conditions.
Three early-career cardiologists have also been awarded overseas training fellowships. Amy Colclough from Dunedin will spend a year at the University of Leeds studying advanced heart imaging. Rahul Gandhi, a cardiology fellow from Auckland, will train at Mount Sinai in New York, focusing on imaging techniques to detect heart disease and heart damage more reliably. Tim Oh, an interventional cardiologist also from Auckland, will study less invasive treatments for adults with congenital heart disease at Toronto General Hospital. These fellowships represent a deliberate investment in building the expertise that will be needed to implement and refine the technologies being developed at home.
The waiting lists that prompted this funding push are not abstract. They represent real delays in care for people whose hearts are already failing them. If the smartphone video tool and the AI-powered echocardiogram analysis work as intended, they could reshape how cardiac care is rationed and delivered—turning months of waiting into days, and turning guesswork into data. The research is still in progress, but the Foundation's commitment suggests confidence that the bottleneck can be broken.
Citas Notables
AI and advanced imaging are opening incredible opportunities to unlock medical information in entirely new ways, helping us better understand heart disease, improve detection and diagnosis, and deliver better care to patients.— Dr. Gerry Devlin, Heart Foundation Medical Director
Our goal is to create a fast, low-cost screening tool that helps ensure limited heart scan resources are directed towards the patients who need them most.— Prashanna Khwaounjoo, biomedical engineer, University of Auckland
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