However, the clearance — which confirms the Olo works just as well as gold-standard lab-grade systems in completing the Complete Blood Count analysis — also positions the Tel Aviv, Israel–based company to disrupt the collection, analysis and, ultimately, the storage of healthcare data found in blood, creating opportunities for unique partnerships.
The secret lies in how the blood is tested. Rather than trying to simplify and shrink the pumps, tubes and other machinery used in traditional blood analysis — as Theranos infamously claimed it could do — Sight Diagnostics is capturing digital images of the blood.
Then, just as radiologists now do on a larger scale with X-rays and other images, the Olo uses artificial intelligence to characterize the number of red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets in a patient’s blood sample. The Olo can quickly detect viral infections, bacterial infections, anemia and forms of blood cancer. It’s also been used to screen blood samples for malaria.