To hear some tell it, AI is all but hunting radiology down
Another day, another future-looker prognosticating radiology’s downfall due to the rise of the AI robots.
A few days ago it was an investment tycoon talking to CNBC. Today, blogging at Forbes.com, investor Todd Hixon takes Siddhartha Mukherjee’s April 3 New Yorker piece “A.I. vs. M.D.” as a jumpoff point for comparing radiology’s prospects for survival (Hixon thinks they’re dim) with those of dermatology (sunny).
“[I]f your business is based on developing rich relationships with customers, and helping them manage key parts of their lives and businesses over time, then you will probably find AI to be a force multiplier, not a threat. This is the dermatology example,” Hixon writes. “If your business is knowledge-based (even deeply so) but transactional and impersonal, AI may well take over: e.g., radiology.”
However, Hixon seems to allow that there may be a middle way for imaging-based diagnosticians.
“[I]f your business is a mix of the two”—relational and transactional—“you need to be shifting your value-add to the relationship-based activities, and taking full advantage of the AI revolution in the transactional activities,” he writes. “This is how hospitals should see radiology.”
Is Hixon hinting that this is also how radiologists should see their services? Others have said as much, but here that’s unclear.
Click for the rest of Hixon’s thinking:
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.