The Future of Medical Imaging: Advances in AI, Analytics

Morris Panner, president of Intelerad, discusses the impact of large hospital system consolidations, trends and perspectives around the future of medical imaging, and the latest advances in AI and analytics. 
 

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My name is Morris Panner, and I'm the president of Intelerad. And Intelerad is a leading cloud medical management system, which helps you, physicians, and everybody else get better by better managing x-rays, CTs, and all that complicated stuff.

Can you discuss the impact of large hospital consolidations? What challenges do they create?

Increasingly, hospitals are starting to feel like supermarkets. And what that means is, they are starting to operate on razor thin margins, over enormous span, and sometimes losing money. The consolidation has really made it more important than ever that they have agile cloud systems to better deliver service at a better value and better quality. And that's what we're all about.

What are some trends/perspectives around the future of medical imaging?

We are at the inflection point, a golden moment for medical imaging. Medical imaging has always been incredible. It's something that lets you see inside the body instead of surgery. That's amazing. But now what we're starting to do with the benefit of AI, higher resolution, and more portable imaging modalities, is increase access and the utility of what you have from imaging. When you think about some of the most interesting advances in, I'll give an example, cancer care today that, is really image-driven. And all of us have a better chance of surviving any type of complicated medical procedure based on what they can do in terms of the data. And that's the key word, the data that they can extract from medical imaging.

What is uniquely beneficial about Intelerad’s new Enterprise Imaging and Informatics Suite?

What Intelerad has done with the Enterprise Image Management Suite is unique across the industry. It has combined different ologies, so different types of imaging, along with different ways of consuming that imaging. Whether you're a specialist as a radiologist or even a subspecialty radiologist, with exactly the viewer you want. Whether you're a referring physician who wants to consult with a radiologist, or whether you're a patient or a scientist who wants to consume that data for other purposes. All of that is accessible on one cloud platform, with a system that provides the best experience for each of these different constituencies. And if you add up the combination of access, quality, and ease of use, that's what we think has differentiated this, and has gotten us all so excited.

Can you discuss the latest advancements in AI and analytics and what they mean for the future of care?

AI is a little bit of a buzzword, but it is a buzzword that is worth sinking your teeth into because artificial intelligence is something that has been around for a long time. But the thing that has started to change the equation on that is the vast amounts of compute that is available at a different type of price point. We are at the very beginning of a revolution in how the data, the pixel data inside of imaging, is going to be combined with other types of data and be able to be processed and understood at a pace and depth that humans can't.

What that means is, over time we're going to see changes in workflow, we'll see changes in the prioritization of studies that will be done automatically and eliminate some of the scut work that drives people crazy. It will do things like give you more precise imaging guidance and measurements, easily. And on top of that, it's going to start taking all of this information and collate it in a way that humans can't. What makes Google so fun is not that it does anything special to any individual article, it's that it aggregates information in a way that you yourself would have to spend years and years in the library. If you think about AI, it's going to make radiologists and other physicians that much more effective at doing what they do best, which is bringing judgment and insight to these complicated problems.

Is there anything else you would like to add to the conversation today?

I can't describe how excited I am about the next, sometimes I say years, sometimes I say 2 years, 5 years, but the next couple of years, there's going to be no more exciting place to be than in digital health writ large, and the more complex data types like imaging are going to really be the belly of the beast. It's so funny, we have so many new employees joining our company, and every time I talk to them, I say, "There's nothing you could do over the next couple of years that would be more option-opening in your career and enable you to contribute more to society than giving more access to this kind of precious information.” That's the journey we're on, and it gets us up in the morning, even on the toughest days, really excited about what we're doing and what we're trying to bring to the world.

About Morris Panner
Morris Panner is the president of Intelerad Medical Systems, leading the company on delivering better care through improved technology. Morris served as CEO of Ambra Health from 2011 until its acquisition by Intelerad in 2021. Morris is an active voice in the cloud and enterprise software arena, focused on the services and health care verticals. He is a frequent contributor to business, health care, and technology publications. Previously, Morris built and sold an industry-leading business-process software company, OpenAir, to NetSuite (NYSE:N).