Several years ago, Andy Scott, PACS Manager and Imaging IT Systems Lead at MKUH, identified AI as a potentially valuable addition to improve efficiency and facilitate more effective prioritisation in his radiologists’ workflow. He was aware of emerging data which demonstrated that AI, combined with radiologist expertise, leads to more accuracy and efficiency than AI alone. He also knew that involving the radiologists in the process from the beginning would help them identify the right AI for their needs and ensure buy-in from the radiologists.
When Andy joined forces with Dr. Kumar Subremanian, another AI champion, the drive to embrace AI at Milton Keynes gained momentum.
Unfortunately, the Milton Keynes team first trialed an AI platform which didn’t perform as well as expected. They specifically needed an AI platform which would integrate directly with their Insignia PACS so the radiologists could incorporate AI tools into their standard workflow. Instead, the workflow was disjointed and took the radiologists out of their PACS, which did not provide the efficiencies they were aiming to achieve.
Deep integration with existing systems and ease of configuration differentiated Blackford
After this false start, in 2022 Andy and his team looked to Blackford to help them evaluate the AI applications they ideally wanted to deploy. One of the key differentiators of Blackford was the ease of configuration. Andy also liked the idea of testing the performance of AI applications through a single integration. Deep integration with existing systems was important and Blackford had already achieved this goal at Milton Keynes.
"The seamless integrations with Blackford make it easy for radiologists to adopt AI applications. Blackford sends results straight to the native PACS viewer. There is no additional training or integration necessary. When someone has a CT head or X-ray done, they want to see the results in their native systems. Blackford allows radiologists to remain in their standard workflow, which accelerates AI adoption."
Andy Scott
Imaging IT Systems Manager, Milton Keynes
Testing algorithms to determine which was best fit
Andy and his team identified two key clinical areas where they felt AI could potentially solve some of their biggest challenges.
Firstly, AI algorithms for CT head for trauma (specifically intracranial haemorrhage) to improve the prioritisation of CT head studies for ICH and determine which needed immediate reporting. Secondly, they also wanted to test AI applications for plain-film fracture detection with a goal of reducing the patient callback rate.
Working together with Blackford, MKUH was able to evaluate five AI applications across these two clinical needs. When the team identified one AI application that wasn’t already available through Blackford, Blackford moved quickly to evaluate and contract this solution provider and orchestrated the logistics of testing their data on the application.
Blackford made it easier to determine which applications were best suited to their needs by running them on the hospital’s anonymised data and reporting the results of the AI applications against the ground truth.
A single source of integration, contracting and support
So has the partnership with Blackford proved successful?
“It’s been excellent,” said Andy. “We have been able to efficiently evaluate multiple AI applications with Blackford to determine which best suit our needs and provide the best results. Now that we have chosen the initial AI applications, we can now easily work with Blackford to identify the next areas where we believe AI can offer efficiencies, costs savings and improved patient outcomes.”
Andy and team have already started researching and prioritising several additional applications for AI.
"Partnering with Blackford makes it easy to add AI applications to the platform as Blackford provides a single source of integration and contracting. The ability to evaluate multiple AI applications for a single use case and select the best fit with Blackford means there’s no more trial-and-error."
Andy Scott
Imaging IT Systems Manager, Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes University Hospital (MKUH) NHS Foundation Trust is a medium sized district hospital that provides a full range of acute hospital services and an increasing number of specialist services to the growing population of Milton Keynes and surrounding areas. With around 550 beds and employing more than 4,000 staff, the hospital sees and treats approximately 400,000 patients each year comprising of both outpatient and emergency attendances.