AI Outperforms Sonographers in Assessing Heart Function
A study published in the peer-reviewed journal "Nature" found that artificial intelligence (AI) is better at assessing heart function than sonographers. The study was conducted by investigators at the Smidt Heart Institute and the Division of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine at Cedars-Sinai and was a first-of-its-kind, blinded, randomized clinical trial of AI in cardiology. Cardiologists more frequently agreed with the initial assessment made by AI and made corrections to only 16.8% of the AI initial assessments. Cardiologists made corrections to 27.2% of the sonographers' initial assessments, and the physicians were unable to distinguish between AI and sonographer assessments. AI also saved cardiologists and sonographers time. The hope is to save clinicians time and minimize the more tedious parts of the cardiac imaging workflow. However, the cardiologist remains the final expert adjudicator of the AI model output. Regulatory approvals are now needed for such tools to...