Q&A: Artificial Intelligence
How AI Can Help Practices of All Kinds
Written by Sarah McNeal
Artificial intelligence seems new, because of ChatGPT. And by now, many people have experimented with it either for generating images or illustrations, or to help with writing prompts. But AI has been used in radiology for a while. Patterson Teleradiology powered by Vetology AI is built on thousands of cases, with AI reports returned in under five minutes. It’s ideal for many types of practices to confirm suspicions, act as a second opinion or illustrate for clients what issue their pet is facing. Each case submitted comes with a full report that can be emailed or printed for transparency with clients.
Insight asked Staci Thorne, CVT about how artificial intelligence can help today’s busy practices. Thorne is a certified vet tech with more than 20 years of experience, including emergency clinics.
Can AI Be Trusted?
Short answer, yes!
Longer answer: In the same way that you would trust your CBC or urine sediment analyzer to aid you in your diagnostic process, AI in radiology can be trusted as a useful tool to help confirm your diagnosis. AI is all about data, and as we continue to feed it more and more information, its uses and capabilities become sharper and stronger. The software’s machine learning algorithms have been exposed to thousands and thousands of radiographs over many years and all those data points have helped build the neural networks that make those platforms so powerful.
Q: In which types of clinics does it work best and why?
Vetology has a use case in many clinical settings that I can think of:
- Are you an ER that needs some diagnostic answers immediately?
Use AI to confirm that your patient needs treatment within minutes. - Are you a general practice that wants to reduce the workload and simplify workflow?
AI can review every radiograph and determine which ones need to be sent for further evaluation, freeing up your time to focus on other things. - Are you a low-cost practice with high standard of care?
Use AI to evaluate all your radiographs and receive a shareable report back that enhances your diagnostic value and reserves teleradiology costs for those cases that truly need it. - Are you a new grad looking for that extra bit of reassurance for difficult-to-read cases?
Confirm your suspicions with AI.