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A Necessary Split | Color-Coded MRI
January 24, 2022
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Together with
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“What we’re focused on is what we can do to clear the COVID [imaging] backlogs.”
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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s very pro-imaging response to interview questions about the COVID lockdown ‘partygate’ scandal.
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Quick Heads Up…
Insight Links also publishes a newsletter called Digital Health Wire that focuses on the rapidly evolving ways patients and providers connect digitally.
If you enjoy The Imaging Wire and want to keep up with this part of healthcare, you might want to give Digital Health Wire a shot.
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IBM is selling most of its Watson Health division to private equity firm Francisco Partners, creating a new standalone healthcare entity and giving both companies (IBM and the former Watson Health) a much-needed fresh start.
The Details – Francisco Partners will acquire Watson Health’s data and analytics assets (including imaging) in a deal that’s rumored to be worth around $1B and scheduled to close in Q2 2022. IBM is keeping its core Watson AI tech and will continue to support its non-Watson healthcare clients.
Francisco’s Plans – Francisco Partners seems optimistic about its new healthcare company, revealing plans to maintain the current Watson Health leadership team and help the company “realize its full potential.” That’s not always what happens with PE acquisitions, but Francisco Partners has a history of growing healthcare companies (e.g. Availity, Capsule, GoodRx, Landmark Health) and there are a lot of upsides to Watson Health (good products, smart people, strong client list, a bargain M&A multiple, seems ideal for splitting up).
A Necessary Split – Like most Watson Health stories published over the last few years, news coverage of this acquisition overwhelmingly focused on Watson Health’s historical challenges. However, that approach seems lazy (or at least unoriginal) and misses the point that this split should be good news for both parties. IBM now has another $1B that it can use towards its prioritized hybrid cloud and AI platform strategy, and the new Watson Health company can return to growth mode after several years of declining corporate support.
Imaging Impact – IBM and Francisco Partners’ announcements didn’t place much focus on Watson Health’s imaging business, but it seems like the imaging group will also benefit from Francisco Partners’ increased support and by distancing itself from a brand that’s lost its shine. Even losing the core Watson AI tech should be ok, given that the Merge PACS team has increasingly shifted to a partner-focused AI strategy. That said, this acquisition’s true imaging impact will be determined by where the imaging group lands if/when Francisco Partners decides to eventually split up and sell Watson Health’s various units.
The Takeaway – The IBM Watson Health story is a solid reminder that expanding into healthcare is exceptionally hard, and it’s even harder when you wrap exaggerated marketing around early-stage technology and high-multiple acquisitions. Still, there’s plenty of value within the former Watson Health business, which now has an opportunity to show that value.
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Doubling Follow-Up at Saint Joseph Mercy
The Saint Joseph Mercy Health System doubled its follow-up recommendation identification/tracking when it adopted Nuance PowerScribe Follow-up Manager, achieving ROI within the first year. Find out how in this Nuance case study.
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Nanox AI’s CPT III Codes
The American Medical Association recently added new CPT III codes for quantitative CT tissue characterization, paving the way for more health systems to adopt Nanox AI’s HealthCCSng CAC scoring population health solution.
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- Color-Coded MRI: A new study in AJNR showed that color-coding lesion changes in MRI exams significantly improves brain metastases follow-up assessments. Two radiologists read 121 pairs of follow-up T1 MRIs (color-coded & conventional), achieving far higher diagnostic accuracy (91.3% vs. 74%), diagnostic certainty (Likert score: 4 vs. 2 out of 5), and interrater agreement (κ = 0.80 vs. 0.46) with the colorized exams. The radiologists also interpreted the color-coded exams much faster (51.8 vs. 74.2 seconds), although the conventional exams were faster when factoring in image processing time (91.5 vs. 79.4 seconds).
- Qure.ai’s qXR-BT 510(k): Qure.ai announced the FDA 510(k) clearance of its qXR-BT solution, which analyzes chest X-rays to automate clinicians’ breathing tube placement / measurement processes (including both endotracheal and tracheostomy tubes). The fact that qXT-BT automates a process that’s common, necessary, and somewhat mundane makes it the type of tool that even AI-hesitant radiologists might be open to.
- 68Ga-FAPI PET/CT for Gastric Cancer: A new study out of China detailed 68Ga-FAPI PET/CT imaging’s strong performance for gastric cancer diagnosis, suggesting that it could even replace 18F-FDG PET/CT (the current standard). The small study of 20 patients with gastric cancer found that 68Ga-FAPI PET/CT outperformed 18F-FDG PET/CT for primary tumor detection (100% vs. 74%) and tracer uptake (P < 0.05). 68Ga-FAPI PET/CT was also superior for both patient-based and lesion-based evaluations, with the exception of metastatic lesions in supradiaphragmatic lymph nodes and ovaries.
- Standardizing AI Development: A Nature review of 72 healthcare AI studies highlighted the need to adopt a standardized AI development framework, proposing a framework that includes: (1) data preparation, (2) model development, (3) model validation, (4) software development, (5) impact assessment, and (6) healthcare implementation.
- Whole-Body CT AI Incidentals: A team of German researchers showed how AI could be used to detect unknown pathologies in emergency whole-body CT scans. The researchers analyzed 105 emergency whole-body CTs using a prototype version of Siemens Healthineers’ AI-Rad Companion Chest CT, identifying patients with cardiomegaly (15 patients), coronary plaques (17), aortic ectasia (34), missed vertebral fractures (13), and suspicious lung lesions (2). However, the AI tool also produced a high number of false positives (especially w/ lung lesions and vertebral fractures).
- Positron & Neusoft’s PET/CT Alliance: Positron announced an alliance with Neusoft Medical Systems that will bring Positron into the North American PET/CT arena, after historically targeting the cardiac PET segment. Positron will rely on Neusoft Medical Systems to manufacture and distribute a new cardiac and oncology-focused Positron-branded PET/CT system (based on Neusoft’s NeuWise PET/CT).
- Loma Linda’s Liver CT Improvement: A new paper from Loma Linda University Medical Center detailed how they right-sized their abdominal CT utilization. After identifying particularly high use of abdominal CT with and without contrast for liver imaging, LLUMC (1) updated their liver imaging protocols to align with LI-RADS guidelines, (2) held clinical team education sessions to introduce the changes, and (3) shared their progress internally. As a result, LLUMC’s median monthly abdominopelvic CTs exams with and without contrast fell from 74 to 52 and their contrast-enhanced abdominopelvic exams increased from 11 to 37.5.
- AI3C: A pretty impressive list of U.S. healthcare and life science organizations announced the formation of Artificial Intelligence Industry Innovation Coalition (AI3C), created with the goal of transforming healthcare through responsible AI adoption. The AI3C and its members (including: Microsoft, Cleveland Clinic, Duke Health, Intermountain, Novant, Brookings Institution, and more) will develop tools and programs to drive AI development and adoption.
- SubtleMR Matches Full-Speed Brain MRI: A recent study from UCSF and Stanford showed that Subtle Medical’s SubtleMR image enhancement software allows 45% faster 3D brain MRI exams, without sacrificing image quality. The researchers performed 3D volumetric brain MRI exams on 32 patients at standard and 45%-faster speeds (sequences: 3D T1 precontrast, 3D T2 FLAIR, and 3D T1 postcontrast), processing the faster sequences with SubtleMR. Four neuroradiologists found that AI-enhanced scans were noninferior for all image quality metrics, while improving signal to noise ratio and restoring high spatial resolution of small structures.
- Probo Acquires REMETRONIX: Probo Medical continued its M&A spree, acquiring major imaging equipment installation and deinstallation service provider REMETRONIX. The acquisition gives Probo install / deinstall capabilities across the US and in the UK, and follows a string of acquisitions that significantly expanded Probo’s imaging sales and service capabilities over the last few years.
- POCUS Matches CXR for COVID: A new JUM study found that point-of-care ultrasound can be as effective as chest X-ray for diagnosing and managing COVID patients. The researchers performed POCUS and CXR exams on 479 ED patients with suspected COVID (87% tested COVID-positive) finding that POCUS findings with B-lines, irregular pleural line, and small sub-pleural consolidations were common among the COVID-positive patients (80%, 60%, 55%). These POCUS findings were non-inferior to CXR, which correctly identified roughly 82% of the COVID-positive patients.
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GE’s Pediatric Crohn’s Gamechanger
See how GE Healthcare’s AIR Anterior Array MRI Coil proved to be a pediatric Crohn’s disease gamechanger, improving patient comfort and cooperation during MR exams.
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- United Imaging Healthcare started investing in the U.S. with R&D in 2013. They added offices. They hired (the best) people across the country. They launched commercially on the national stage in 2018. But the cherry on top was opening their U.S. factory, showroom, and training center in Houston – in the midst of a pandemic – one year ago. It’s a unique facility for the U.S., and they’ve loved showing it to hundreds of people in person so far, and many more virtually. Here’s to many more years of growth
- This European Radiology study highlighted Riverain Technologies’ ClearRead Xray – Detect as one of just two imaging AI products to achieve the FDA’s most stringent premarket approval level. See how they measured up against the other 99 AI tools here.
- How could photon-counting CT impact your patients? In this video, the Medical University of South Carolina, one of the first users of the NAEOTOM Alpha, talks about the potential to visualize small lesions and fine details for high diagnostic confidence in neurology, cardiology, oncology, and pulmonology.
- Check out this talk from Eliot Siegel, MD on the “Hype, Myth, Reality and Next Steps” of imaging AI, including a profile on Canon’s AiCE Deep Learning Reconstruction solution at around the 4-minute mark.
- With radiation dose management now largely considered best practice, this Bayer white paper details the top five benefits of adopting contrast dose management.
- See how VidiStar users have benefitted from Fujifilm Healthcare’s cardiovascular information system’s flexible SaaS-based model and leveraged its productivity advantages to drive reimbursements.
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