November 22, 2017 — Augmented intelligence (also known as artificial intelligence, or AI) and machine learning are fueling innovations in healthcare to address the pressing clinical needs of care providers. At the 2017 Radiological Society of North America annual meeting (RSNA 2017), Nov. 26-Dec. 1 in Chicago, Agfa HealthCare will be demonstrating its latest work-in-progress visions for AI through workflow optimized integration of Agfa HealthCare's Enterprise Imaging solution with products offered by IBM Watson Health, RadLogics and Mindshare Medical.
Growing populations, chronic disease prevalence, comorbidities and spiraling healthcare costs have generated the demand for AI leveraging cognitive power, for solutions that can manage big data and unstructured clinical content to improve clinical decision-making, clinician productivity and care.
Nadim Michel Daher, Frost & Sullivan analyst explained, "One of the top-of-mind questions the radiology community is wrestling with right now is ‘man versus machine, or man-only versus man plus machine?’" Agfa said it believes the next decade is going to be about the augmented radiologist: the combination of AI with the human intelligence that imaging professionals bring to the table today with their ability to understand the big-picture of a patient and the context of their disease.
According to Nick Spencer, M.D., consultant radiologist, Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, U.K., "Task-based rules within enterprise imaging will help prioritize workflow for radiologists and in escalating urgent cases. Augmented intelligence has the potential to further enhance that flow through triage and sign-posting abnormal findings."
Agfa HealthCare takes the position that the path to realize value from the advances in AI, machine learning and computer-assisted diagnosis is achieved by embedding intelligence in the clinical workflows and by providing clinicians synergistic innovations from industry vendors and care providers. Given the nascent state of AI within healthcare, Agfa HealthCare's approach looks to provide care organizations the ability to realize gains from innovations more quickly and achieve better delivery of care with the workflow-optimized AI solutions.
In addition at RSNA 2017, Agfa will demonstrate another work in progress — organically conceived and third-party algorithms integrated into Agfa HealthCare's Enterprise Imaging solution to help screen for life-threatening diseases such as cancer and tuberculosis. With these algorithms, healthcare providers will have the ability to view contextual images and optimize screening workflows.
Agfa offers a new white paper on the topic here.
For more information: www.agfahealthcare.com
July 01, 2026 
