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Tanner Health First in US to Use PMcardio AI Platform for Heart Attack Care

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Patients with suspected heart attacks across west Georgia and east Alabama will now have access to artificial intelligence-powered electrocardiogram (ECG) assessment whether their first medical contact occurs in a 911 ambulance, a community hospital or a cardiac center, following Tanner Health's deployment of Powerful Medical's PMcardio platform.

The rollout marks the first commercial United States deployment of Queen of Hearts, Powerful Medical's newly FDA-authorized AI ECG model for urgent acute coronary syndrome, and brings the technology into routine clinical care just days after its FDA De Novo authorization.

“We are proud to be the first healthcare organization in the United States to adopt the PMcardio platform,” said Loy Howard, president and CEO of Tanner Health. “Healthliant Ventures, which is the innovation arm of Tanner, aims to improve access, transform care and empower professionals for higher quality and better efficiency. PMcardio aligns closely with all of this — helping to detect acute heart attacks from ECGs and improving outcomes. This technology builds on our continued investment in cardiovascular care, ensuring that patients move quickly from initial assessment to the specialized teams and advanced capabilities available at Tanner and Adams Heart Center.”

A heart attack occurs approximately every 40 seconds in the United States. However, conventional ECG interpretation can fail to identify acute coronary occlusions that do not meet traditional ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) criteria, potentially delaying recognition and treatment.

Through integration with Tanner's Epic electronic health record and EMS workflows, PMcardio embeds Queen of Hearts into existing clinical pathways. When a patient receives a 12-lead ECG in a Tanner ambulance or emergency department, the AI assessment is a secondary support to clinical decision-making and, where appropriate, earlier cardiology consultation and cardiac catheterization.

“This deployment reflects Tanner’s commitment to bringing advanced cardiac care closer to the communities we serve,” said LaQuinta Grizzard, MSN, RN, NE-BC, AACC, vice president of Heart and Vascular Services at Tanner Health. “By integrating PMcardio and the Queen of Hearts AI ECG model across EMS, emergency departments and cardiology workflows, our clinicians have another decision-support tool to help recognize high-risk heart attack presentations earlier, including cases that may not meet traditional STEMI criteria. That shared insight can help support faster evaluation, more informed escalation and timely access to the right level of care.”

Moving Beyond Conventional STEMI Criteria

Queen of Hearts is supported by more than 20 peer-reviewed studies encompassing more than 40,000 patients across four continents. In a multicenter U.S. study of 1,032 patients published in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions, Queen of Hearts identified 553 of 601 confirmed STEMIs from the initial ECG, compared with 427 through standard triage, while reducing the false-positive rate from 41.8% to 7.9%.

“Regulatory authorization tells clinicians a technology is safe and effective, but the real test is whether it changes what happens to the patient in front of them,” said Robert Herman, MD, PhD, chief medical officer and co-founder of Powerful Medical. “With Tanner, Queen of Hearts is entering routine clinical practice in the United States for the first time, giving paramedics, emergency physicians and cardiologists a shared, objective assessment of the ECG at the moment critical decisions are made.”

Queen of Hearts received FDA De Novo authorization in September 2026, establishing a new device classification for AI ECG models targeting acute, life-threatening cardiovascular diagnoses, following FDA Breakthrough Device Designation in March 2025.

“A patient having a heart attack in a rural community deserves the same diagnostic support as one who walks into a major cardiac center,” said Michal Martonak, commercial director at Powerful Medical. “Since FDA authorization, hundreds of health systems and clinical sites across the United States have expressed interest in deploying Queen of Hearts. Tanner is the first to turn that demand into a live deployment across ambulances, emergency departments and the cath lab. It is a blueprint for bringing AI-supported cardiac diagnostics to the point of first medical contact.”