Category: Imaging IT

Software Closes Radiology Reporting Loop

Posted on by Brian Casey

In the never-ending quest to get referring physicians to follow radiologist recommendations for follow-up imaging, Massachusetts researchers in JAMA Network Open offer an IT-based solution: Structured reporting software that was found to triple the number of radiology reports judged to be complete. 

A recent study found that 65% of radiologist recommendations for follow-up imaging aren’t followed by referring physicians. Authors of that study found that recommendations that were strongly worded and communicated directly to referring doctors had higher uptake. 

But what if radiologists don’t follow this advice? In the new paper, researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School offer a more structured solution thanks to software developed as part of their Addressing Radiologist Recommendations Collaboratively project. 

The ARCC software is a closed-loop communication system that’s designed to channel radiologist recommendations into a structured format that’s clearly understood, while also tracking whether they were accepted and fulfilled. The ARCC tool runs separately from the radiologist’s dictation software, so while it asks them to include a standardized recommendation sequence in their report, it leaves the specific free-text language up to them. 

Under the ARCC criteria, the main factors that make up a complete follow-up recommendation are:

  • Reason for imaging study
  • Timeframe when study should be completed
  • Imaging modality to be used

The researchers implemented the ARCC software in October 2019 in thoracic imaging, and rolled it out to other departments through December 2020. Use of the software was “strongly encouraged but voluntary.” 

In testing the ARCC software’s effectiveness, the researchers found that the number of follow-up recommendations considered to be complete – with all three key elements – rose from 14% to 46%. Even so, one-third of reports filed with ARCC “still contained ambiguous language” in the free-text section – indicating that old habits are hard to break.

The Takeaway

Radiologists may hate it when their recommendations for follow-up imaging are ignored, but referring physicians are also frustrated with free-text radiology reports that are wishy-washy and contain vague impressions. The ARCC software could bridge the gap by steering radiologists toward recommendations that are more concrete and specific – and more likely to be followed.

Google Launches Cloud Medical Imaging Suite

Posted on by Jake Fishman

Google announced what might be its biggest, or at least most public, push into medical imaging AI with the launch of its new Google Cloud Medical Imaging Suite.

The Suite directly targets organizations who are developing imaging AI models and performing advanced image-based analytics, while also looking to improve Google’s positioning in the healthcare cloud race.

The Medical Imaging Suite is (logically) centered around Google Cloud’s image storage and Healthcare API, which combine with its DICOMweb-based data exchange and automated DICOM de-identification tech to create a cloud-based AI development environment. Meanwhile, its “Suite” title is earned through integrations with an array of Google and partner solutions:

  • NVIDIA’s annotation tools (including its MONAI toolkit) to help automate image labeling
  • Google’s BigQuery and Looker solutions to search and analyze imaging data, and create training datasets
  • Google’s Vertex AI environment to accelerate AI pipeline development
  • NetApp’s hybrid cloud services to support on-premise-to-cloud data management
  • Google’s Anthos solution for centralized policy management and enforcement
  • Change Healthcare’s cloud-native enterprise imaging PACS for clinical use

It’s possible that many of these solutions were already available to Google Cloud users, and it appears that AWS and Azure have a similar list of imaging capabilities/partners, so this announcement might prove to be more technologically significant if it leads to Google Cloud creating a differentiated and/or seamlessly-integrated suite going forward.

However, the announcement’s marketing impact was immediate, as press articles and social media conversations largely celebrated Google Cloud’s new role in solving imaging’s interoperability and AI development problems. It’s been a while since we’ve seen AWS or Azure gain imaging headlines or public praise like that, and they’re the healthcare cloud market share leaders.

The Takeaway

Although some might debate whether the Medical Imaging Suite’s features are all that new, last week’s launch certainly reaffirms Google Cloud’s commitment to medical imaging (with an AI development angle), and suggests that we might see more imaging-targeted efforts from them going forward.

HIMSS 2022 Reflections

Posted on by Jake Fishman

Two years after HIMSS became COVID’s first trade show casualty, healthcare’s leading IT conference returned to Orlando with a very post-COVID vibe and a surge in imaging activity. 

Hope you had a blast if you made it to HIMSS, and here’s some highlights in case you didn’t:

The HIMSS Crowd – Unlike the Delta-impacted HIMSS 2021 conference, this year’s event boasted a full exhibitor list and reportedly solid health IT leadership attendance. However, exhibitor staff often appeared to outnumber potential customers on the show floor, prompting conversations about whether HIMSS is evolving into a B2B event and causing some vendors to question where imaging sits on IT executives’ list of priorities. 

The Mixed Cloud – PACS and enterprise imaging vendors continued to ramp up their cloud capabilities and cloud leadership messaging, with nearly everyone agreeing that the future will bring far more cloud adoption. It was also clear that many radiology practices and hospital systems (and even some PACS vendors) are still taking it slow on their path towards the cloud. 

AI in the Aisles – Only a handful of imaging AI companies had booths this year, but it wasn’t hard to find folks from AI startups walking the show floor or in meeting rooms. That’s actually consistent with previous HIMSS conferences, and it makes a lot of sense given AI startups’ limited budgets and the low count of radiology leaders at the show.

AI in the Enterprise – Although we didn’t hear much about all those PACS-based AI platforms / marketplaces that were announced several years ago, AI was positioned at the center of quite a few PACS vendors’ future diagnostic workflow strategies. These strategies still largely focused on integrating third-party AI tools, but several major enterprise imaging players (e.g. Canon, Fujifilm, Siemens) also forecasted a greater future role for their own homegrown AI tools.

The Productivity Press – With imaging growing in volume / complexity at a much faster rate than imaging teams’ own headcounts / capabilities, just about every product message focused on improving productivity and efficiency. HIMSS 2022 saw imaging vendors address this in a wide variety of ways, including remote modality operation, ultrasound AI automation, automated scanner setup, and hanging protocol standardizing (to name a few).

Expanding Ologies – HIMSS also revealed more multi-ology progress as enterprise imaging players better connected their solutions, added new ology-expanding partnerships, and integrated their acquired companies. That said, it seems like the majority of “enterprise” imaging engagements are still limited to radiology, or at least starting there.

Looking Beyond Imaging – A walk around the show floor suggests that healthcare tech is evolving at a much faster pace outside of imaging, with major adoption and technology advances in telemedicine, patient monitoring, at-home and hybrid care, and patient engagement. Although most of these solutions have little to do with radiology right now, these efforts could change how and where many patients get their care, which would have an impact on nearly all specialties. By the way, we have an excellent newsletter about this space for those looking to keep up with these trends. 

The Takeaway

After one year of digital conferences and another year of minimally-attended hybrid events, the bar has been set pretty low for 2022 trade shows. That said, HIMSS had everything that you would expect from a successful post-COVID trade show (plenty of vendors, exciting tech, strong attendance, good vibes), which is a good sign for future events as long as the pandemic cooperates.

Although HIMSS 2022 didn’t necessarily reveal any major focus changes for imaging IT, it did showcase some solid progress advancing the major imaging trends that we’ve seen over the last few years (cloud, AI, productivity, enterprise-expansion), and we’re excited to see what else this year has in store.

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