Moreover, there are integration challenges to incorporate the information from AI systems into radiologists' workflows. This will require that developers work with imaging vendors to ensure such integration.

"Up to now, the market has mainly been driven by the many startups and specialist companies that are applying machine learning to medical imaging, but the major medical imaging vendors are now ramping up their AI activities,” Harris advised.

Some of the big tech players moving into the field “in the last year or so,” he said, included such giants as China's Tencent and Alibaba.

“The combined R&D firepower of the expanding ecosystem will knock down the remaining barriers, and radiologists will have a rapidly expanding array of AI-powered workflow and diagnostic tools at their disposal,” the study advised.

In late July, a paper in the Journal of the American College of Radiology looked at the the ways that AI overhead costs will change medical imaging economics.

“When we look at it (AI), we don’t necessarily look at if we can get more done faster. If I can get my same volume of work done instead of in a ten-hour day, in a nine-hour day, that gives me another hour I can work with patients, the hospitals, and administrators to further patient care and actually achieve better outcomes," Dr. Kurt Schoppe, the author and chair of the Reimbursement Committee of the American College of Radiology Economics Commission told HCB News.

Big data, machine AI learning has already demonstrated it can often read images more efficiently than humans. But for radiologists, this means they will get more time – and enjoyment, according to Shoppe – back in their practice. This is because radiologists will be relieved of many repetitive and mundane reading tasks.

But a challenge remains, namely, how will such efficiencies be reflected in payment policies to radiologists?

“For artificial intelligence, there may not be a physician work component, so the RUC and Medicare likely won't acknowledge the technical component of the reimbursement," Schoppe explained. “This is why vendors need to understand the nuance here, because it affects how they calculate potential returns on investment.”

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