New Artificial Intelligence Tool Could Save Lives and Healthcare Costs
Piscataway, NJ (PRWEB) October 25, 2016 -- Radiologists spend years acquiring and refining the skills needed to expertly interpret the subtle features found in medical images. A new software tool under development by Clearview Diagnostics called cCADTM* uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to augment the radiologist’s decision making capability. The new AI tool’s algorithms have been shown in a forthcoming publication to improve the performance of diagnosing breast cancer. The paper shows that cancer detection rate can be maintained or even improved while reducing unnecessary breast biopsies by up to 55% using the cCADTM* algorithms. The study found that the performance of the individual radiologists was improved while the variation among the radiologist was reduced when using the cCADTM* algorithms.
The paper indicates that all stakeholders should benefit from the use of cCADTM* technology. The costs to the patients, the healthcare payers and radiology imaging centers all stand to be reduced by reducing unnecessary biopsies.
Approximately 80% of the 1.6 million biopsies performed every year in the US are found to be benign or non-cancerous. Reducing unnecessary breast biopsies by earlier identification of benign conditions will result in hundreds of thousands of women avoiding the unnecessary anxiety and inconvenience of getting breast biopsies. The paper references the fact that breast biopsies burden individual patients with an additional $310 on average in out-of-pocket costs. This cost would imply that an AI assistant could save women in the U.S. alone over $200 million in direct out-of- pocket costs. This savings for patients does not include the added costs saved due to the need to take time off from work, travel expenses, child care, etc.
Healthcare Payer organizations will also save the costs due to the savings in reimbursement costs from the eliminated biopsies. In the paper, the cost containment is estimated to be in the range of $1.5 to $3.5 billion per year to healthcare payers. This is consistent with the goal of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services CMS and private healthcare payers to transition to more value-based reimbursement as opposed to the less efficient volume-based reimbursement policies of the past.
Reducing the number of biopsies also provides financial benefits for radiology imaging centers. The cost savings come in terms of saving time for the technologist and radiologist to perform more useful activities. In addition the examination room and ultrasound machine become available for more productive activities.
The CEO of Clearview Diagnostics, Christine Podilchuk, stated that “Clearview Diagnostics’ new artificial intelligence medical imaging assistant will help millions of patients worldwide while saving costs throughout the healthcare ecosystem.”
About Clearview Diagnostics:
Clearview Diagnostics is dedicated to advancing healthcare through innovative artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The company’s state-of-the-art machine learning technology is designed to assist healthcare professionals in disease diagnosis in order to improve patient outcome, reduce overall healthcare costs and make medical image diagnosis accessible worldwide. Clearview’s initial focus is on breast cancer diagnosis and the company plans to expand its AI platform to other diseases and imaging modalities. Clearview Diagnostics is headquartered in Piscataway, NJ. For more information, please visit http://www.clearviewdiagnosticsinc.com
*The cCADTM tool is not currently FDA approved for sale and distribution in the United States.
William Hulbert, VP of Product Development, Clearview Diagnostics Inc., http://www.clearviewdiagnosticsinc.com/, +1 (732) 529-5755, [email protected]
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