FEATURE REPORT: DEVELOPMENTS IN MEDICAL IMAGING – SEE PAGE 14
VOL. 29, NO. 1
FEBRUARY 2024
INSIDE: OUTLOOK AND TRENDS PAGE 16 Robots that do ultrasounds Researchers and clinicians in Saskatchewan are testing robots that can conduct ultrasound exams. The devices can talk to patients in many languages and they can even apply the gel. Page 6
Pediatric trauma training Physicians in Montreal have partnered with a British tech company to create a virtual reality-based solution for advanced training in pediatric trauma. It can be used anytime, anywhere. Page 10
PHOTO: COURTESY OF CHEO
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CANADA’S MAGAZINE FOR MANAGERS AND USERS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN HEALTHCARE
Breast cancer registry Breast Cancer Canada has launched Canada’s first national registry to collect patient reported outcomes for breast cancer. It will help guide research and management of the disease for women in the years to come. Page 12
How CHEO keeps its equipment up-to-date The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) keeps 3,800 desktops, laptops, notebooks, kiosks and shared workstations current through a device lifecycle management program with Nova Networks. Before the agreement, computer equipment might have been antiquated and well past its prime. Pictured: CHEO’s manager of IT services Brian Vezina and CIO Mari Teitelbaum. SEE STORY ON PAGE 4
Australia deploys AI in radiology across the country BY J E R R Y Z E I D E N B E R G
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HICAGO – An Australian diagnostic imaging organization has surged ahead with an enterprise-scale implementation of AI, deploying Annalise.ai to 250 sites and to over 400 radiologists across the country. The group, called I-MED, provides reading and reporting services to clinics and public and private hospitals throughout Australia. Like other DI organizations around the world, its radiologists had been finding it difficult to keep up with the fastgrowing demand for exams. AI was seen as a solution for improving quality while maintaining throughput and reducing stress and burnout of radiologists. By implementing artificial intelligence
across the enterprise, I-MED has leapfrogged most other reading groups worldwide, most of which are still testing AI in small-scale projects. “Australia is advanced, compared to the rest of the world, when it comes to deploy-
The group developed their own methodology, as no one had done such a large AI rollout before. ing AI,” said Dr. Catherine Jones, a cardiothoracic radiologist at I-MED who helped lead the project. She is also a professor of clinical imaging at the University of Sydney and a clinical consultant with Annalise.ai. Dr. Jones outlined how and why I-MED implemented AI software enterprise-wide at
the annual RSNA radiology conference in late November. Addressing an audience in Chicago, she discussed the approach used by I-MED and explained how the organization handled change management and the use of metrics. She said I-MED had to develop much of this methodology on its own, because no one else had done such a large-scale deployment of AI and there were no cases to model their own upon. I-MED developed the Chest application, called Annalise CXR, in a joint venture with AI technology company Harrison.ai. The solution was deployed in Australia in 2021 and can detect more than 120 findings; it’s now used daily by I-MED’s 400+ radiologists. In an initial test of the AI system for chest C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 2