The Reading Room Podcast: How Ochsner Health Utilized AI to Help Improve Follow-Up of Incidental Findings on Imaging

Clearly defining the nature of the problem is critical to addressing it in an adequate and efficient manner. As Kernesha Weatherly, DHA, noted in a new Diagnostic Imaging podcast, there was a significant lack of clarity and data with respect to follow-up of incidental imaging findings at Ochsner Health.

“We didn't have clear line of sight of which exams were being followed up on, which exams weren't being followed up on, (and) which ones did the ordering clinician decide for whatever reason that they didn't want to follow up on (it)? If anybody asked us to pull that data. I had no way of doing that. That was the biggest issue where we kind of realized, ‘Okay, guys, we've got to get clear line of sight of this because we cannot articulate any aspect of this,’” recalled Dr. Weatherly, the vice president of imaging at Ochsner Health in New Orleans.

While Dr. Weatherly noted that she is inundated with pitches from companies offering AI solutions, she emphasized the importance of ascertaining the extent of the problem first before exploring AI software solutions. This required gathering feedback from ordering physicians, radiologists and patients, and considering the ideas and experiences of colleagues from other institutions, according to Dr. Weatherly.

Dr. Weatherly said the integration of AI-powered follow-up management with Inflo Health at Ochsner Health took approximately 18 months and acknowledged that due diligence with the institution’s IT and IS systems factored into the integration. However, she said the “very thorough” process has led to data dividends for improving collaborations with the organization’s pulmonary team and initial work in examining trends in population health.

When asked how she would advise colleagues considering AI software solutions, Dr. Weatherly emphasized the importance of initial clarity of the problem at hand.

“Before you start that search, you need to be clear on what problems you have and what things you desire to solve. Once you have identified that, that allows you to … create the list of questions of your boundaries, of the hard yeses and hard no’s (to) the things that you're looking for, and that allows you to be extremely detailed,” added Dr. Weatherly.

(Editor’s note: For related content, see “New Study Examines Agreement Between Radiologists and Referring Clinicians on Follow-Up Imaging,” “Study Assesses Clinical, PET and CT Findings for Lymph Node Prediction in Lung Cancer Patients” and “FDA Clears AI Software for Opportunistic Multisystem Computed Tomography Screening.”)

For more insights from Dr. Weatherly, listen below or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.