RSNA: Philips announces AI-enabled additions to imaging portfolio

Royal Philips made several announcements at RSNA23 in Chicago yesterday, including the release of its next-generation AI-enabled advanced visualization workspace, its AI Manager and the BlueSeal MR Mobile Unit.

The company’s visualization workspace for health systems is an AI-powered offering aimed at improving workflows using a single platform for multiple modalities. The company said it helps turn data into meaning and includes more than 70 clinical applications, such as a cardiac MR suite that gives an overview of all imaging data types to support diagnosis. 

Philips’ BlueSeal MR Mobile is a transportable MRI system that can be placed within a truck. It connects Philips Radiology Operations Command Center, bringing remote imaging experts and technologists together via real-time video, audio or peer-to-peer text chat. The company says the system will allow for better access to imaging solutions in remote communities. 

The AI Manager is an IT solution that allows clinical partners to integrate third-party algorithms into their workflow, with over 100 AI-based workflow applications available. 

“There’s tremendous stress on the system, and therefore, if we look at innovation, we need to come up with technology that does not burden our customers but empowers them, and we need to see beyond these challenges to see how we come up with solutions for our customers to actually have more time to focus on things that truly matter, which is caring for patients,” Bert van Meurs, chief business leader of precision diagnosis and image-guided therapy at Philips, said during a media roundtable at RSNA.  

“Therefore, if you look at the solutions that we present here at the RSNA, our solutions are really designed, first of all, to improve patient outcomes, very much enabled also by AI, looking at more predictive diagnosis more consistent, then also looking at optimizing workflows. So, deploying AI to see how we can integrate with informatics and become much more efficient in how we do our diagnosis.”

THE LARGER TREND

Fellow medtech giant GE Healthcare also made announcements at RSNA, including its AI-enabled MRI system dubbed SIGNA Champion. It utilizes AI and deep learning to enable faster and more precise MRI scans. 

The company also announced more than 40 primarily AI-enabled imaging technologies designed to streamline workflow and improve healthcare efficiency, including cardiology, oncology and neurology innovations. 

Mass General Brigham and radiology company Annalise.ai announced a collaboration at the event in Chicago, which will see the pair build, deploy and research AI-enabled diagnostic imaging tools using Annalise Triage, a product for chest X-ray and non-contrast head CT that flags 12 time-sensitive clinical findings.