AI detects key findings in chest x-rays of pneumonia patients within 10 seconds

Editor's Note

Researchers from Intermountain Healthcare and Stanford University say 10 seconds is how long it takes for their new model, which uses artificial intelligence (AI), to accurately identify key findings in chest x-rays of patients in the emergency department suspected of having pneumonia. The researchers presented the findings of their collaborative study on September 30 at the European Respiratory Society’s International Congress 2019 in Madrid, Spain.

The researchers found that the model outperformed the current system of using a radiologist to create radiology reports for all key pneumonia findings, plus running the reports through Cerner Natural Language Processing, and it did so in less than 10 seconds, compared to 20 minutes to hours.

The ultraquick findings of the AI model allows physicians reading x-rays to accurately confirm a pneumonia diagnosis significantly faster than current clinical practice, enabling quicker treatment, the researchers say.