NC Health System Enters AI Partnership To Improve Care Coordination 

Cone Health, a nonprofit healthcare network serving patients in North Carolina, and Rad AI, a radiologist-led artificial intelligence company, announced the finalization of their partnership to leverage and enhance Rad AI’s Continuity platform for care coordination.

Rad AI Continuity closes the loop on follow-up recommendations for significant incidental findings, incidental discoveries of masses or lesions, in radiology reports. With AI-driven automation, the Continuity platform ensures the proper patient follow-up is communicated, ordered, scheduled, and completed, improving patient outcomes and reducing health system liability.

Additionally, the platform integrates data directly into a health systems’ electronic health records and works seamlessly with outpatient imaging centers.

“Rad AI Continuity provides a transformative approach to perhaps one of the most vexing patient care problems — how to effectively identify, track, and prompt the appropriate completion of best practice recommendations (BPRs) included within radiology reports,” Michael Gilliam, director of radiology at Cone Health's Annie Penn Hospital, said in a press release.

“Not only does Continuity close the loop on follow-up recommendations, it detects when significant incidental findings require BPRs that weren't mentioned, helping to increase report accuracy and ensure appropriate patient follow-up.”

According to Cone Health CEO Mary Jo Cagle, MD, it is critical to close the loop on significant incidental findings. However, doing so can be challenging using the organization’s currently available resources.

“By automating the majority of steps related to patient follow-ups, Rad AI removes those manual tasks from our clinical team and gives them back more time to focus on caring for their patients,” Cagle said in the press release.

Continuity is the only AI solution on the market that works with all types of freeform and consensus guideline recommendations while assessing clinical appropriateness based on the health system's preferences.

“Continuity's ability to streamline communication, physician ordering, and patient scheduling increases the rate of appropriate follow-up imaging and referrals from an average of 25 percent at most health systems, up to 70-75 percent,” Jeff Chang, MD, co-founder and chief product officer of Rad AI, said in the press release.

“Cone Health is a national leader in quality, service, and cost, and we believe Rad AI Continuity will help Cone Health further expand its leadership in these areas. Our organizations share a passion for delivering exceptional care for all patients and reducing the burden on care teams, and this partnership furthers our combined mission.”

Cone Health, a five-hospital system, provides care for residents of Guilford, Alamance, Rockingham, Forsyth, Randolph, and surrounding counties in North Carolina.

Health systems are increasingly entering into AI partnerships to improve patient outcomes. Recent partnerships have included Novant Health and Aidoc to decrease emergency room length of stay, and Walmart and Health at Scale to provide personalized healthcare.