Tag: imaging IT

Top 4 Trends from SIIM 2024

Posted on by Brian Casey

SIIM 2024 concluded this weekend, and what a meeting it was. The radiology industry’s premier imaging IT show returned to National Harbor, MD, for the first time since 2018, where the Biosphere-like environment of the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center offered a respite from the muggy weather outside. 

SIIM is always a great place to check in on new imaging IT technologies like PACS, AI, and enterprise imaging, and hot topics at SIIM 2024 included…  

  • AI Needs to Get Real (World): Research studies showing AI’s value are fine, but developers need to show that AI works in real-world settings before wider adoption will occur. Fortunately that’s started with landmark studies published recently for use cases like breast and osteoporosis screening. Meanwhile, scuttlebutt on the SIIM 2024 exhibit floor reinforced that start-ups are navigating an ugly funding environment, and many industry observers are predicting a wave of AI consolidation. 
  • Outlook Clears for the Cloud: Cloud-based imaging has struggled to catch on for years, but that’s starting to change as healthcare providers warm to the concept of letting third parties oversee their patient data. And there are signs that imaging IT vendors that were quick to develop cloud-based versions of their PACS software are reaping the rewards.
  • Enterprise Imaging Grows Up: This year’s meeting marked the 10-year anniversary of enterprise imaging, as dated from the start of the SIIM-HIMSS collaboration in 2014. The anniversary is a milestone worth observing, but it also raises questions about what the next 10 years will look like, and how AI and data from other -ologies will be integrated into enterprise networks. 
  • Cybersecurity Takes Priority: Several high-profile cybersecurity breaches at healthcare vendors and providers in the last year highlight that not enough is being done to keep patient data secure. Will migrating to the cloud help? Only time will tell.

The Takeaway

SIIM’s collegiality and coziness has always been a selling point for the meeting, even back in the days when it was known as SCAR. This year didn’t disappoint, as deals got done and relationships were built at the Gaylord National.  

Be sure to visit our YouTube channel and LinkedIn page to view our video interviews from the floor of the meeting – it was great seeing you all at the show!

Indies Surge in Imaging IT

Posted on by Brian Casey

The market for medical imaging IT technology continues to shift, with a pair of surging independent players growing rapidly in a sector that’s long been dominated by multinational OEMs. That’s according to the latest report on the imaging IT market by UK market intelligence firm Signify Research. 

The new report is projecting that the global market for imaging information technology will grow 18% over the next few years, from $5.6B in 2023 to $6.6B in 2028. 

  • Radiology will continue to dominate with a majority of sales, with cardiology IT a distant – but growing – second. Advanced visualization and operational workflow tools will make up the rest.

In terms of vendors, the top three market leaders of 2023 were GE HealthCare, Philips, and Fujifilm, but more recently, Visage Imaging and Sectra have been gaining market share. 

  • The report echoes recent news that has seen some of the largest multi-site enterprise imaging installations going to Visage and Sectra; a recent KLAS Research report also showed both companies’ growing momentum. 

Some of the other major points from the report include … 

  • Major growth in cloud deployment will occur – by 2028, 37% of the global imaging IT market will be in either hybrid or fully hosted environments
  • Cloud will represent 44% of the total radiology IT market by 2028
  • On a regional basis, the Middle East will see “significant growth” in imaging IT from 2024 to 2026, particularly in the Gulf States
  • Recovery is expected in China and the ASEAN nations, while India’s growing economy is driving healthcare digitization
  • Latin America is showing rising interest in AI and cloud technologies, but national elections could complicate matters

The Takeaway
The new Signify Research report underscores the evolving nature of the imaging IT market, as independent vendors rise to challenge multinational OEMs that dominated the sector for years. Be sure to check out Signify’s helpful infographic on LinkedIn that succinctly wraps up the changes.

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.

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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