Tag: imaging informatics

Predicting the Future of Radiology AI

Posted on by Brian Casey

Making predictions is a messy business (just ask Geoffrey Hinton). So we’re always appreciative whenever key opinion leaders stick their necks out to offer thoughts on where radiology is headed and the major trends that will shape the specialty’s future. 

Two of radiology’s top thought leaders on AI and imaging informatics – Curtis Langlotz, MD, PhD, and Paul Chang, MD – gaze into the crystal ball in two articles published this week in Radiology as part of the journal’s centennial celebration. 

Langlotz offers 10 predictions on radiology AI’s future, briefly summarized below:

  • Radiology will continue its leadership position when it comes to AI adoption in medicine, as evidenced by its dominance of FDA marketing authorizations
  • Virtual assistants will help radiologists draft reports – and reduce burnout
  • Radiology workstations will become cloud-based cockpits that seamlessly unify image display, reporting, and AI
  • Large language models like ChatGPT will help patients better understand their radiology reports
  • The FDA will reform its regulation of AI to be more flexible and speed AI authorizations (see our article in The Wire below)
  • Large databases like the Medical Imaging and Data Resource Center (MIDRC) will spur data sharing and, in turn, more rapid AI development

Langlotz’s predictions are echoed by Chang’s accompanying article in Radiology in which he predicts the future of imaging informatics in the coming age. Like Langlotz, Chang sees the new array of AI-enabled tools as beneficial agents that will help radiologists manage growing workloads through dashboards, enhanced radiology reports, and workflow automation. 

The Takeaway

This week’s articles are required reading for anyone following the meteoric growth of AI in radiology. Far from Hinton’s dystopian view of a world without radiologists, Langlotz and Chang predict a future in which AI and IT technologies assist radiologists to do their jobs better and with less stress. We know which vision we prefer.

Imaging IT’s Infrastructure Problem

Posted on by Jake Fishman

A heated Twitter conversation revealed widespread discontent with imaging’s outdated and fragmented IT infrastructure, suggesting that it’s draining radiologist productivity and standing in the way of AI adoption.

This tweet by Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Anton Becker, MD, PhD got things started: “95% of radiology departments would do well to direct 100% of their AI efforts and budget towards upgrade and maintenance of PACS, RIS and dictation software for the next 5 years… Our field is plagued by legacy software.” 

And here’s what the ensuing replies and retweets revealed:

  • PACS Productivity – Nearly everyone agreed that their overall imaging IT setup was insufficient, with one rad estimating that a “supercharged PACS” would improve his productivity by 30%, and another noting that workflow customization would “at least double” her speed and accuracy.
  • Imaging IT Revolution – Some called upon the “legacy” PACS, RIS, and voice recognition vendors to make more “revolutionary changes,” rather than settling for tweaks to current setups. Others proposed government intervention.
  • IT Isn’t Flashy – One thing that might be holding some imaging IT overhauls back is “it’s not as flashy to boast” about high-quality infrastructure, and “the people who have authority to allocate resources are more motivated by flash than function.”
  • Holistic IT – Eventually the conversation led to several well received proposals that we “eliminate the idea of PACS as a category and start thinking more holistically about radiology IT.” In other words, this might be more of a “fragmentation problem” than a PACS/RIS/voice functionality problem (or an AI budget problem). 

The Takeaway

Even if RadTwitter tends to skew towards academic radiologists and often focuses on what’s going wrong, this conversation indicates widespread dissatisfaction with current imaging IT setups, and suggests that radiologist productivity (and perhaps accuracy and burnout) would improve significantly if imaging IT worked as they’d like it to work. 

It’s debatable whether this imaging IT problem is actually due to an unnecessary focus on AI (very little of the conversation actually focused on AI), but it does seem reasonable that rad teams with solid infrastructure would be more likely to embrace AI.

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