At this week’s Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) annual meeting in Chicago, there was certainly no shortage of innovation on display, and among the rollouts was GE Healthcare’s  new Edison artificial intelligence platform.

Designed to help hospitals and health systems make better use of AI and derive more value from their technology, Edison is part of GE Healthcare’s $1 billion and growing digital portfolio and will serve as a “digital thread” for its existing AI partnerships and products. 

"Edison provides clinicians with an integrated digital platform, combining diverse data sets from across modalities, vendors, healthcare networks and life sciences settings," said GE Healthcare CEO Kieran Murphy in a statement. "Applications built on Edison will include the latest data processing technologies to enable clinicians to make faster, more informed decisions to improve patient outcomes.”

Among the apps unveiled this week were AIRx, an AI-based, automated workflow tool for MRI brain scanning designed to increase consistency and productivity; Critical Care Suite, which is awaiting FDA approval but is designed to identify cases with the critical condition of pneumothorax at the point-of-care to enable prioritization of image review, and;  CT Smart Subscription, which offers continuous access to the latest CT software, extending the life cycle of devices.

According to GE, the healthcare AI market will exceed $6.5 billion by 2021, and the company cites data that shows 39 percent of healthcare decision makers planning to investing in machine learning and predictive analytics for imaging and other clinical applications.

"Edison powers pioneering but practical technologies that improve the workflows and devices of today and target the greatest pain points in the system,” explained Keith Bigelow, senior vice president of Edison portfolio strategy at GE Healthcare, in the statement.

"There's a lot of hidden meaning in the deep data, but it takes a significant sophistication to extract the value," added Dr. Rachael Callcut, associate professor of surgery at UCSF and director of data science for the Center for Digital Health Innovation, who helped develop Critical Care Suite for the platform. "AI gives us an opportunity to see patterns that we don't see and change the way we care for patients, which can ultimately improve outcomes.”