Can Emerging AI-Guided Software Rein in Scan Times for Cardiac MRI?

For Raymond Y. Kwong, MD, MPH, FACC, FSCMR, long scan times with cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can have a significant downstream effect on patient access to this technology. He noted the increased demand for cardiac MRI has led to wait times of three to five weeks for outpatients and four to five days for in-patients to be scheduled for a cardiac MRI.

“These numbers are really unacceptable for patient care from our standpoint,” noted Dr. Kwong, the director of Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging in the Cardiovascular Division of the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and a professor medicine at Harvard Medical School.

With this in mind, Dr. Kwong recently started using Vista.ai (formerly HeartVista) One-Click MRI, an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled software that helps improve image quality as well as the efficiency of cardiac MRI procedures. At the recent Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) conference, Dr. Kwong shared his six-month experience with Vista.ai’s One-Click MRI and noted a 31 percent reduction in scan times based on 1,100 consecutive cardiac MRI studies performed between April 2022 and September 2022 for patients with cardiomyopathy or structural heart disease.

When employing full use of the Vista.ai One-Click MRI software, Dr. Kwong found that 90 percent of cardiac MRI studies could be completed in less than 45 minutes in comparison to 25 percent of non-AI-aided studies.

(Editor’s note: This interview was recorded prior to HeartVista’s announcement about the company name change to Vista.ai.)

For more insights from Dr. Kwong, watch the video below.