Artificial intelligence solutions—and certainly, the promotion of such solutions—were everywhere this year at the RSNA Conference, held this week at Chicago’s vast McCormick Place, where nearly 49,000 attendees attended clinical education sessions, viewed nearly 700 vendor exhibits. And AI and machine learning promotions, and discussions were everywhere.
Scanning the exhibit floor on Monday, Glenn Galloway, CIO of the Center for Diagnostic Imaging, an ambulatory imaging center in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park, Minn., noted that “There’s a lot of focus on AI this year. We’re still trying to figure out exactly what it is; I think a lot of people are doing the same, with AI.” In terms of whether what’s being pitched is authentic solutions, vaporware, or something in between, Galloway said, “I think it’s all that. I think there will be some solutions that live and survive. There are some interesting concepts of how to deliver it. We’ve been talking to a few folks. But the successful solutions are going to be very focused; not just AI for a lung, but for a lung and some very specific diagnoses, for example.” And what will be most useful? According to Galloway, “Two things: AI for the workflow and the quality. And there’ll be some interesting things for what it will do for the quality and the workflow.”
“Certainly, this is another year where machine learning is absolutely dominating the conversation,” said James Whitfill, M.D., CMO at Innovation Care Partners in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Monday. “In radiology, we continue to be aware of how the hype of machine learning is giving way to the reality; that it’s not a wholesale replacement of physicians. There have already been tremendous advances in, for example, interpreting chest x-rays; some of the work that Stanford’s done. They’ve got algorithms that can diagnose 15 different pathological findings. So there is true material advancement taking place.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Whitfill said, “At the same time, people are realizing that coming up with the algorithm is one piece, but that there are surprising complications. So you develop an algorithm on Siemens equipment, but when you to Fuji, the algorithm fails—it no longer reliably identifies pathology, because it turns out you have to train the algorithm not just on examples form just one manufacturer, but form lots of manufacturers. We continue to find that these algorithms are not as consistent as identifying yourself on Facebook, for example. It’s turning out that radiology is way more complex. We take images on lots of different machines. So huge strides are being made,” he said. “But it’s very clear that human and machine learning together will create the breakthroughs. We talk about physician burnout, and even physicians leaving. I think that machine learning offers a good chance of removing a lot of the drudgery in healthcare. If we can automate some processes, then it will free up our time for quality judgment, and also to spend time talking to patients, not just staring at the screen.”
Looking at the hype cycle around AI
Of course, inevitably, there was talk around the talk of the hype cycle involving artificial intelligence. One of those engaging in that discussion was Paul Chang, M.D.., a practicing radiologist and medical director of enterprise imaging at the University of Chicago. Dr. Chang gave a presentation on Tuesday about AI. According a report by Michael Walter in Radiology Business, Dr. Chang said, “AI is not new or spooky. It’s been around for decades. So why the hype?” He described computer-aided detection (CAD) as a form of artificial intelligence, one that radiologists have been making use of for years.
Meanwhile, with regard to the new form of AI, and the inevitable hype cycle around emerging technologies, Dr. Chang said during his presentation that “When you’re going up the ride, you get excited. But then right at the top, before you are about to go down, you have that moment of clarity—‘What am I getting myself into?’—and that’s where we are now. We are upon that crest of magical hype and we are about to get the trench of disillusionment.” Still, he told his audience, “It is worth the rollercoaster of hype. But I’m here to tell you that it’s going to take longer than you think.”
So, which artificial intelligence-based solutions will end up going the distance? On a certain level, the answer to that question is simple, said Joe Marion, a principal in the Waukesha, Wis.-based Healthcare Integration Strategies LLC, and one of the imaging informatics industry’s most respected observers. “I think it’s going to be the value of the product,” said Marion, who has participated in 42 RSNA conferences; “and also the extent to which the vendors will make their products flexible in terms of being interfaced with others, so there’s this integration aspect, folding into vendor A, vendor B, vendor C, etc. So for a third party, the more they reach out and create relationships, the more successful they’ll be. A lot of it will come down to clinical value, though. Watson has had problems in that people have said, it’s great, but where’s the clinical value? So the ones that succeed will be the ones that find the most clinical value.”
Still, Marion noted, even the concept of AI, as applied to imaging informatics, remains an area with some areas lacking in clarity. “The reality, he said, “is that I think it means different things to different people. The difference between last year and this year is that some things are coming to fruition; it’s more real. And so some vendors are offering viable solutions. The message I’m hearing from vendors this year is, I have this platform, and if a third party wants to develop an application or I develop an application, or even an academic institution develops a solution, I can run it on my platform. They’re trying to become as vendor-agnostic as possible.”
Marion expressed surprise at the seemingly all-encompassing focus on artificial intelligence this year, given the steady march towards value-based healthcare-driven mandates. “Outside of one vendor, I’m not really seeing a whole lot of emphasis this year on value-based care; that’s disappointing,” Marion said. “I don’t know whether people don’t get it or not about value-based care, but the vendors are clearly more focused on AI right now.”
Might next year prove to be different? Yes, absolutely, especially given the coming mandates coming out of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA), which will require referring providers to consult appropriate use criteria (AUC) prior to ordering advanced diagnostic imaging services—CT, MR, nuclear medicine and PET—for Medicare patients. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will progress with a phased rollout of the CDS mandate, as the American College of Radiology (ACR) explains on its website, with voluntary reporting of the use of AUC taking place until December 2019, and mandatory reporting beginning in January 2020.
But for now, this certainly was the year of the artificial intelligence focus at the RSNA Conference. Only time will tell how that focus plays out in the imaging and imaging informatics vendor space within the coming 12 months, before RSNA 2019 kicks off one year from now, at the conference’s perennial location, McCormick Place.
