Radiology Partners (RP), a leading radiology practice in the U.S. through its owned and affiliated practices, is proud to announce a significant achievement for the radiology specialty through the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) at unprecedented scale. By deploying AI across more than 20 million annual exams already this calendar year, RP’s investment in advancing and expanding AI demonstrates its commitment to elevating patient care, enhancing outcomes and improving ROI for clients committed to advancing healthcare.
Dr. Nina Kottler, RP’s Associate Chief Medical Officer for Clinical AI, emphasized the transformative impact of AI: “Radiologists have long been considered the doctor’s doctor. By augmenting radiologists’ capabilities, we can further elevate the quality of our work, transitioning from purely imaging experts to information experts. AI tools are positively impacting care pathways and care coordination for patients, enhancing value for referring providers, hospitals and health systems.”
In total, RP has run more than 30 million images through its imaging AI and 116 million reports through its natural language processing (NLP) AI. Currently, more than 2,600 of RP’s 3,600 radiologists are using at least one AI tool within their daily workflow. The addition of AI assists the radiologist with computer vision tasks such as the triage, detection and diagnosis of high-risk findings, and NLP tasks such as report creation assistance, best practice adherence and follow-up assurance. Through this cutting-edge clinical innovation, RP radiologists have enhanced patient care and improved the quality of their output. With a dedicated team of 13 AI trained radiologist leaders, an unmatched heterogenous data set that spans 50 million exams per year in all 50 states, and strategic partnerships with leading AI developers, RP is uniquely positioned to continue leading the way in clinical AI integration.
Rich Whitney, RP’s Board Chair and CEO, affirmed the role of AI in advancing diagnostic practices: “We need radiologists in the driver’s seat of technological innovation in our field. AI will not replace radiologists, but radiologists using AI are already revolutionizing how exams are interpreted, resulting in improved and faster diagnoses and providing superior information for our physician partners. AI is just a tool, but it is a powerful tool and a differentiator in the advancement of our role within healthcare. Our radiologists are proudly on the forefront.”
Investing in Technology: Harnessing the Power of AI for Clinical Progress.
In 2021, RP formed a strategic partnership with Aidoc, a leading developer of clinical AI platforms and tools. This collaboration has been pivotal in paving the way for the introduction and implementation of a wide array of cutting-edge AI solutions within RP’s network of affiliated practices and client facilities.
“Aidoc is proud to play a crucial role in reshaping the landscape of healthcare. Our collaboration with Radiology Partners shows how AI is directly addressing critical issues in health systems today,” shared Elad Walach, CEO at Aidoc. “By harnessing the power of AI, Aidoc is helping RP to improve patient care and enhance the efficiency of healthcare delivery. This implementation milestone is significant, and it marks just the beginning of AI’s potential to revolutionize healthcare. We remain dedicated to leading this transformation in partnership with physician led organizations like RP.”
RP radiologists are utilizing Aidoc’s platform and solutions for intracranial hemorrhage, pulmonary embolism (PE), incidental PE (iPE), cervical spine fracture, (c-spine fx) and rib fracture (rib fx). By incorporating Aidoc AI into the radiologists’ workflow, RP has improved patient care through its ability to triage potentially positive findings, enhancing detection for ICH by 12.6%, PE by 18.1%, iPE by 35.8%, c-spine fx by 16.4%, and rib fx by 60.5%.
In addition to Aidoc, RP partners with other leading AI organizations such as Rad AI to auto-generate customized report impressions, Subtle AI to minimize image capture time while maintaining image quality, and iCAD’s ProFound Breast Health Suite to detect breast cancer earlier without increasing recall rate. vRad, an RP-affiliated practice focused solely on teleradiology, utilizes Qure.ai to triage intracranial hemorrhage as well as multiple internally developed AI models to triage cases behind the scenes and to provide quality assurance support and AI-assisted medical malpractice reduction programs. RP has also developed and deployed proprietary AI tools, including recoMD, that assist in quality management.
Transforming Radiology: A Path to Specialty-Wide AI Best Practices
RP’s culture of innovation includes a commitment to share expertise across the healthcare profession. Drawing upon years of AI experience, RP has created best practices for the evaluation and implementation of AI models. By disseminating these best practices, RP aims to raise the bar for the evaluation and implementation of AI to a high standard of care specialty wide. Leveraging its client network, its RP Cloud Enterprise IT system, and its proprietary process for validating AI tools across its large data set, RP can seamlessly and confidently implement AI tools into hospitals and health systems—a differentiator for facilities and AI developers that partner with RP.
As technology advances the boundaries of AI, RP‘s proactive approach ensures AI adoption is guided by comprehensive technical and real-world evaluation and user education, setting a new benchmark for excellence and patient care in the field of radiology.
SOURCE: BusinessWire
