How Radimal Balances AI With Human Expertise

How Radimal Balances AI With Human Expertise

In recent years, the conversation about artificial intelligence (AI) has been steadily picking up steam. 

The AI software market is predicted to reach $126 billion by the year 2025 and, chances are, you’re already using AI in your daily life—from using Instagram filters that rely on facial recognition to the personalized recommendations you are served on Amazon.

As its prevalence grows in our world, lots of different views of AI are developing. So, what’s the real deal with AI? And, more importantly, how do we here at Radimal think it should be used to make the biggest impact in veterinary medicine? We have answers for you. 

Artificial intelligence shouldn’t feel artificial 

Using AI for healthcare isn’t exactly a new concept. It’s found a place in everything from surgery to dictation. However, AI is still often viewed as an entirely separate and siloed piece of the patient care puzzle.

Think about radiology in particular (since that’s what we’re focused on here at Radimal). In most cases, AI solutions will analyze a set of X-rays and then provide you with a radiology report. 

But, what happens if you want the real, human eyeballs of a trained radiologist to take a look at those images? You need to send your images to an entirely different teleradiology company and wait for their findings. It’s not an integrated or seamless process, and it often leads to the same frustrations that AI aims to solve in the first place, including:

  • Long wait times for reports and conclusions
  • Potential for discrepancies, errors, or missed information
  • Multiple logins, interfaces, and reports to manage and juggle

It’s disjointed at best. It leads a lot of people to point the finger at AI as the culprit, but it’s not necessarily that simple. 

Thomas Strohmer, PhD, a mathematics professor and director of the Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Research at the University of California-Davis states it best in a paper for the American Veterinary Medical Association:

“I should make it very clear, there is no ‘I’ in AI, not yet. The people who write these algorithms are very intelligent, but the algorithms themselves are not intelligent in a way that they can reason.”

It’s not that there’s something inherently wrong with AI. On the contrary, it has numerous use cases that are beneficial in the field of veterinary medicine. 

Instead, we take Dr. Strohmer’s quote to mean that AI in its current state is best leveraged as a complement to human touch in healthcare—not as a total replacement. 

How Radimal combines the human element with AI 

That’s where many services fall short. They focus on either being an AI solution that’s all about the tech or a teleradiology company that relies solely on real human interpretation. 

At Radimal? We don’t think of ourselves as an “AI solution” or a “teleradiology company”—we’re a “radiology solution,” which lies right in the sweet spot between AI and the human element that’s still needed. Here’s how it works:

  • Your machine automatically submits your patient images to Radimal. AI then pre-reads and analyzes those images.

  • A live radiologist reads the case and consults the AI findings. This helps confirm their instincts and direct their search.

  • You receive a radiologist-reviewed report that shares the case history, patient images, a simple-to-read image about what systems were checked and what was found, and clinical notes from the radiologist—all in clear, easy-to-understand language. 

    • Basically, Radimal allows you to get the best of both worlds in one solution. That means you can reap the benefits of both AI and human radiologists, including: 

    • Reduced potential for errors since AI doesn’t experience eye strain, fatigue, distraction, tunnel vision, and more
    • Concrete answers from one unified solution, so clinicians aren’t left wondering whether to trust an AI report or a live radiologist
    • Short wait times, as most Radimal radiology reports ready and in your inbox within a few hours
    • Easy access to radiologists—all you need to do is reply to the email that contains your report
    • Streamlined experience with one log-in, simplified billing, and an intuitive interface

    Plus, Radimal has the best customer service in the industry with a convenient chat function and near-immediate response times.

    To sum it all up, AI in veterinary medicine doesn’t need to be all or nothing. In fact, it works best when it’s used in combination with real, expert eyes and knowledge—and that’s exactly what we do here at Radimal. 

    Ready to see for yourself why Radimal is better? Start your free 30-day trial today

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