Where AI Meets Medicine: Rethinking Radiology Workflows

Can AI read X-rays better than humans? Will AI make radiologists’ jobs easier or more complicated? And how could a team of AI agents one day work alongside doctors to improve patient care? Those are just a few of the thought-provoking questions at the center of this episode of Where AI Works. 

In this final interview of season four, host Christian Terweisch sits down with Dr. Pari Pandharipande, the Chair of Radiology at Penn Medicine, to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping the world of medical imaging. Whether we’re talking about X-rays, CT scans, or MRIs, radiology has always relied on expert human interpretation. Now, AI is changing the workflow by boosting efficiency and helping hospitals tackle one of the biggest challenges in healthcare: a growing labor shortage. Dr. Pandharipande also walks us through the day-to-day work of a radiologist, explaining how images are analyzed, reports are generated, and decisions are made. She shares how AI is already shortening MRI exam times, detecting strokes faster, and providing decision-support tools that augment human expertise. 

Episode Highlights:

7:36 - Pari explains how technology, and AI in particular, is being used to speed up and streamline the process of interpreting medical imaging.

16:19 - Pari tackles the tough question of whether or not AI could make work harder for radiologists by taking care of the easy cases and leaving the harder ones for humans.

18:56 - Pari discusses the balancing act that comes with trying to understand and embrace AI while still being somewhat skeptical of its capabilities.