YORK, Pa. — WellSpan Health is the first health system in South Central Pa. to use the power of artificial intelligence to assist radiologists in reading CT scans and they say it can save lives.
"What it does, is it looks at all CT scans for certain abnormalities and allows us to look at them almost immediately, the total time is about six minutes," Dr. Edward Steiner, former chairman of imaging for WellSpan York Hospital said.
He also said that it's important because they do approximately 580,000 CT scans per year at WellSpan York Hospital and time is not always on their side. He says Aidoc can scan anywhere between 200 and 1,000 images within four to six minutes and if it spots something of concern, they can read that abnormality in 15 minutes rather than in several hours.
Aidoc also tells doctors what type of abnormality was discovered and can even spot problems that might otherwise not be seen by the human eye, like a pulmonary embolism.
"Which is a really tremendous thing because that can be a silent killer if we don't know it's there and if we don't find it properly," he said.
Aidoc also automatically prioritizes the scans it takes. so if it finds something severe, that patient's chart goes straight to the top of the treatment list. The new tech is especially useful now as the hospital works to expedite non-life threatening cases that may have been delayed due to COVID-19.
Dr. Steiner says the extra set of eyes equal a faster and more accurate diagnosis for patients, leading to better overall care.
WellSpan is the only health system in South Central Pa. offering this type of technology. Right now, it's only at WellSpan York Hospital, but they hope to have it up and running in all seven of its locations in the near future.
For more information, contact WellSpan York Hospital's radiology department here.