The American College of Radiology (ACR) has teamed up with the Medical Image Computing and Computer Assistance Intervention Society (MICCAI) to develop algorithms that better provide for the clinical needs of radiologists.

The creation of these AI tools is the first step in an ongoing partnership for establishing standards and infrastructure to monitor and evaluate the development of imaging AI for safe, effective and quality patient care.

“We believe that AI can help free the radiologist from time-consuming, tedious tasks so that more time can be spent on consultation and interpretation and in areas that provide the greatest clinical value,” Mike Tilkin, ACR executive vice president and chief information officer, told HCB News. “The more time a radiologist can spend focusing on high-priority cases and interacting with colleagues and patients, the greater value that individual will bring to the healthcare team.”
ACR’s Data Science Institute announced its intention this past November to create a framework, strategy and focus for developing AI use cases for training, testing, validating, integrating and monitoring AI algorithms in clinical practice.

A panel of experts from different clinical backgrounds will create the use cases and work with AI vendors to prioritize those with the greatest potential for enhancing patient care, based on the intersection of clinical needs and technical feasibility.

It also will develop strategies for appropriate validation pre-deployment and ongoing monitoring while in the clinical setting.

MICCAI’s AI imaging competitions will enable ACR to draw knowledge for enhancing its AI use cases and executing them to their full potential.

In addition, the ACR will provide its strong clinical perspective, experience in creating imaging standards, and history of promoting imaging informatics solutions including DICOM, to further enhance its research and collaboration with MICCAI.

“Adding MICCAI to our community of collaborators will help us promote learning in a scientifically-rigorous manner, target solutions that have the greatest clinical impact, and promote standards that encourage a useful clinical workflow,” Tilkin said. “Like DICOM, we are looking to promote a common framework for the AI ecosystem on a global scale, and MICCAI's international presence will help further this objective as well.”

The ACR will work with MICCAI to enhance awareness and understanding of AI nationwide, including in an upcoming keynote address from ACR’s incoming board chair, Dr. Geraldine McGinty, at MICCAI’s upcoming annual meeting in September in Granada, Spain.

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