Imaging Advantage Announces Groundbreaking Healthcare Innovation Initiative with MIT Researchers to Develop Artificial Intelligence X-Ray Engine

PHOENIX, April 22, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Imaging Advantage LLC (IA), the largest platform provider of cloud based radiology service in the United States, announced today the launch of a machine learning research initiative with leading faculty members from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, titled Singularity Healthcare ®. 

Singularity is developing an artificial intelligence engine to be seamlessly incorporated into IA's proprietary exam routing technology, to instantly pre-read digital x-rays and identify potential areas of injury and disease, while continuously learning from IA's expanding database of 7 billion images.  The algorithm will be applied before X-Ray images are routed to one of the 500 board certified radiologists connected in the cloud to IA's platform.  

Combining business and academic power, Singularity seeks to provide a widely applicable solution to problems central to the U.S. healthcare system.  X-Ray exams constitute 50% of all radiology tests in healthcare, and radiology is the significant limiting factor in hospital emergency department patient flow and treatment.

The initiative brings together leading academicians from two renowned programs at MIT and Harvard.  SP Kothari, PhD, Gordon Y Billard Professor of Management at MIT's Sloan School of Management will lead the project, working in conjunction with Dr. Sanjay Saini, Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School and Vice Chairman of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) who will advise on imaging quality and utility to radiologists, and Kalyan Veeramachaneni, PhD, Principal Research Scientist at MIT's Institute for Data, Systems and Society.

"Inconsistency in testing and access to care contribute significantly to $1 trillion of waste in the $2.8 trillion U.S. healthcare industry," said Brian Hall, Imaging Advantage's President and COO.  "If successful, Singularity will introduce a solution with potential to transform radiology by providing faster, more accurate and less expensive diagnostic testing, representing an indispensable innovation for radiologists."

Dr. Kothari added, "We have a number of opportunities for research and innovation at MIT, but were particularly intrigued by the bold initiative proposed by Imaging Advantage.  Given IA's platform approach to healthcare delivery, national scale and significant imaging data set, and the contribution of Dr. Saini from MGH, one of the leading global radiology teaching and research institutions, the project is not only achievable, but also has potential to touch nearly every person in world.  This is how we think artificial intelligence and deep learning should be developed and deployed."  

"The proposed deep-learning solution combines all layers of machine learning into a single pipeline, and then optimizes and meshes with other machine-learning algorithms on top of it," said Dr. Kalyan Veeramachaneni.  "Starting this endeavor with the enormous trove of meta data in Imaging Advantage's archives, we can learn how decisions made at the initial, raw representation stage impact the final predicted accuracy efficacy."

"We believe diagnostics is the gateway for the integration of artificial intelligence in healthcare," said Hall.  "Once we successfully develop this mechanism for X-Rays, we see the potential to expand the technology to CTs and MRIs, as well as other areas of time consuming diagnostic testing.  The goal is to create a useful tool for radiologists, who are in shortage both domestically and internationally.  Radiologists will continue to be indispensable."

Singularity Healthcare ® is being launched in Q2 of 2016.   According to Dr. Kothari, "Given the advances in the field of artificial intelligence that have taken place at MIT and elsewhere, and Imaging Advantage's scale, we are not only optimistic about a successful outcome, but expect it to be realized on an accelerated schedule."

To learn more about the Singularity Healthcare ® initiative, visit: www.imagingadvantage.com

About Imaging Advantage

Imaging Advantage is the leading platform provider of cloud based radiology, with more than 500 radiologists and 450 facilities across the United States and internationally connected to the IA platform.  IA's customers include every major payor in the United States, and most of the largest healthcare systems, including the Department of Veterans Affairs.  IA also provides its proprietary technology to the US Department of Defense.  Learn more at http://www.imagingadvantage.com.

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SOURCE Imaging Advantage

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