Continued progress in reinventing how people connect with technology and each other.
The annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) reliably produces a lot of important radiology news, and it would be fair to say that this year’s conference was no exception.
In fact, it’s more accurate to call the news from this year’s conference – game-changing. RSNA 2018 was exceptional for the marked shift in how radiologists are energized by the practical and easily accessible ways to use AI to boost workflow productivity, reduce burnout, address healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes.
In fact, our introduction of PowerScribe One and our update on the vibrant first-year growth of the Nuance AI Marketplace for Diagnostic Imaging are at the vanguard of that shift. Specifically, our RSNA announcements demonstrate how AI – after a lot of fear, uncertainty, doubt and hype – is now both useful and usable. PowerScribe One and the AI Marketplace together represent a new generation of radiology reporting systems that specifically address workflows and collaborative, interoperable solutions. Nuance is, as UPMC Chief Innovation Officer Dr. Rasu Shrestha tweeted on the rainy first day of the show, one of the “winners” really “doing AI.”
The innovations in PowerScribe One begin with a cloud-powered, continuously learning, and context-aware language understanding platform that converts unstructured speech-to-text input into structured clinical data while the radiologist speaks and without any additional steps or input. PowerScribe One uses the cloud and real-time input from thousands of Nuance users to continuously train machine learning algorithms that improve accuracy and specificity. That transforms the value of radiology with a wealth of actionable data that can be shared and used throughout the healthcare value chain. Structured narrative data also opens a path to expanded interoperability and a new generation of data-driven applications.
Workflow integration is the key
PowerScribe One is designed from the ground up with workflow-integrated access to AI tools for assisted diagnosis, clinical guidance, quality-checking, and report automation. That includes integrated access to the Nuance AI Marketplace for Diagnostic Imaging and its expanding library of workflow, diagnostic, and other radiology algorithms. Images are automatically routed through PowerShare, where algorithms from the AI Marketplace analyze them and send results back into PowerScribe One. The radiologist then reviews each AI finding, and accepted results and recommendations are automatically included in the report with no additional steps.
The practical benefits of workflow-integrated AI are as clear and accessible as the tools themselves. Radiologists are seeing:
Those benefits cascade through the healthcare value chain with:
A collaborative, workflow-integrated AI marketplace
In less than a year since we introduced it, the AI Marketplace for Diagnostic Imaging has mobilized a community of developers, researchers and technology leaders building, testing, validating and sharing algorithms for radiology. The AI Marketplace now has more than 40 developers and healthcare organizations including the Center for Clinical Data Science at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. We’re also working with the American College of Radiology (ACR) and other professional societies to establish standards for AI within radiology workflows, EHRs, PACS, and other areas.
A few examples of workflow-integrated algorithms available through the AI Marketplace are:
Unlike other imaging AI marketplaces and exchanges, the Nuance AI Marketplace gives developers access to 70 percent of all radiologists across 5,500 healthcare facilities, continuous algorithm training using real-world data, and automated access to required registries. For subscribers, the AI Marketplace offers one-stop-shopping for imaging algorithms integrated into the radiology reporting workflow, with a collaborative feedback channel for continuous improvement.
It’s gratifying and incredibly encouraging for us to see the radiology community share in our vision for AI. It’s also inspiring to see the growing commitment to AI among radiologists as they begin to realize the benefits and explore further advances.
One thing is for sure: PowerScribe One and the AI Marketplace are winning game-changers for really “doing AI” in radiology.