Nuance announced the launch of a new “Precision Imaging Network” on Monday, which will help relieve overburdened physicians by providing artificial intelligence-powered first reads of exams.
The Burlington, Massachusetts, firm said the tool is driven by its PowerScribe and PowerShare solutions, used by 80% of U.S. radiologists and connecting more than 10,000 facilities. Unveiled at RSNA Nov. 29, the cloud network would connect these stakeholders, deploy AI to bolster diagnostics, increase doc efficiency and lower costs.
Nuance Chief Strategy Officer Peter Durlach compared the network to having an assistant whose sole duty is to review every image, backed by algorithms to aid their determinations.
“It’s sort of an electronic version of a pre-read on the image,” he told Radiology Business Monday at RSNA. “Instead of relying on the radiologist who is overworked and overburdened and might not even have access to all of the images for each patient, how can we make that process more effective on a nationwide scale? What the AI is doing, essentially, is using technology to put another set of eyes on the vast majority of imaging in the country.”
Beyond using AI-based diagnosis, the network will also automate tasks, provide clinical decision support and facilitate care team communication. Durlach believes this is the only nationwide diagnostic imaging platform delivering AI-generated patient info across provider, payer and life sciences cases.
The platform runs on Azure, a cloud computing service operated by Microsoft, which recently announced its intent to acquire Nuance for nearly $20 billion. Durlach said the merger is still on course to close by early 2022 following antitrust approval in June.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.