Artificial intelligence in the VISUS strategy
The topics of data consolidation, archiving and distribution have already been on the agenda of the VISUS developers for many years. Thus an important foundation has been laid for further development of medicine as a whole and of radiology in particular. Specifically, unification of information and precise availability as well as secure and intelligent filing are important building blocks for practice-oriented use of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. It is now time to unite these two worlds and to redefine the roles in radiology. VISUS is helping to organize this process.
Radiology is becoming the treatment integrator
Besides the efforts toward data consolidation, the consolidation of distribution and operation of software systems has also come into focus in recent years – to the extent of operation as so-called Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). In parallel with this, and inspired by the possibilities that AI systems may offer for the medical sector and in particular for radiology, a demand for structured data pools in addition to the consolidated data pools has developed.
These requirements threads, which at first were separate from one another, are now converging. For some years, the VISUS developers have been working toward being able to operate the JiveX solutions in a cloud – in a stepwise process with the goal of being able to offer JiveX as SaaS. A the same time, the backend intent is to make the data from various sources available in a form as structured as possible. Close cooperation with manufacturers of important AI applications permits VISUS even now to initiate the necessary steps to prepare JiveX for the requirements in daily handling of structured data obtained from native sources.
Structured data are the essence
The more centrally and uniformly data consolidation takes place, the more efficiently it is possible to implement unification and homogenization processes, for example for uniform coding of data contents.
Such a simplification is essential to future acquisition of the urgently needed structured information in radiology. And naturally this is also the place at which the aggregated information from healthcare facilities and AI solutions come together and, via AI evaluations, find their way into the diagnostic chain of the facilities.
With respect to coming together: The unification of results, above all that of the newly structured data from the most diverse areas of medicine, plays a predominant role in the VISUS strategy. Why? Because only clever joining of data leads to improvement of healthcare by quality of information and to optimization of processes. This was true for the unification of in-house data from different systems. And it will also be true in future for the data from systems of different manufacturers.
Structured data will take on a key role in future in all areas of patient care – and the radiologists will be the "suppliers" of these data with their letters of findings. They must be prepared for this new role.
Findings reports are coming into focus
And in the process, the PACS will support them in future. This is so because the PACS will be the place at which all data converge: images, structured clinical data and information from AI. Here they will be aggregated and processed to new information, which will then reduce the workload of radiologists by the fact that specific measured values will be automatically displayed. And by the fact that clinical information will be enriched with image information and will be ready at the push of a button, or the fact that the sheer data quantities can be evaluated reliably at all.
The JiveX Enterprise PACS has already been consistently distinguished by its high functionality and its strong process orientation, which supports effective everyday work activities of the radiologists. This path will also be followed logically in the future, by the fact that the necessary functionalities – processing of structured data, AI solutions and ultimately the structured finding – will converge in the PACS. Such bundling of information will make it possible in future for the staff in radiology to deploy their knowledge and experience where it creates greater added value. And therefore to become free of mindless measurements and to advance to sophisticated analyses. to new knowledge, which also results from the greater cooperation with the other clinical departments. Radiology may be the place where medical data converge and where the switches are set on the track for excellent, modern healthcare. With the strategic further development of the JiveX Enterprise PACS, VISUS is paving the way and thus ensuring further development and increased value of the entire field of radiology.