What You Should Know:
According to data from Intelerad, patient trust is not a barrier to AI adoption by medical imaging professionals in the U.S. 64% of respondents either trust or are neutral about a diagnosis solely from AI.
The Intelerad study of over 1,000 healthcare consumers across the U.S. uncovers the impact of healthcare’s digital transformation on the healthcare consumer in a post-pandemic world. The results unveil new insights into patient attitudes toward AI.
Patient Attitudes Toward AI Medical Images Adoption
When asked to rate their level of trust in a diagnosis by a radiologist assisted by an AI application, a whopping 79% of respondents reported they trust or are neutral about it. Respondents aged 55+ are much more likely to trust diagnoses assisted by AI as opposed to solely relying on it (59% compared to 22%). Not surprisingly, trust in AI correlates with age: the younger an individual, the more likely they are to trust it.
Other key findings include:
– AI is highly trusted for making appointments and organizing a radiologist’s workload. When it comes to specific activities, 88% of respondents trust or are neutral about AI’s role in making appointments. Additionally, 86% trust or are neutral about AI organizing a radiologist’s workload by flagging questionable abnormalities.
– Education is key: Patients do not know when their radiology services are supported by AI. Only 19% of respondents believed they received care supported by AI, while 24% did not know, and 58% believed they had not. The younger an individual, the more likely they were to believe that AI has played a role in their care, with only 4% of 55+ believing so.
– Healthcare consumers believe AI will play a major role in medical imaging in the future. The majority of respondents (60%) think that AI will perform over half of radiology services in five years, with that number increasing to 75% of respondents in the next 20 years. Furthermore, 8% of individuals think AI will account for 100% of services in the next five years, with that number increasing to 19% of respondents by 2042.
– Sentiments among healthcare consumers diverge from current uptake of AI across the radiology field. Approximately 30% of radiologists are currently using AI as part of their practice and among those not currently deploying AI, 20% plan to purchase AI tools in the next one to five years, according to research from the ACR Data Institute.
“There has been significant research about how AI is transforming radiological services, yet little has been done to gather insight and preferences from the perspective of the healthcare consumer. Our latest study provides a new dimension to understanding how AI is impacting medical imaging by asking the patient their thoughts on the emerging technology in the field. This insight can help physicians with their decision-making around when and how to implement AI services,” said Morris Panner, President of Intelerad.
