AI diagnostics improve neurological care

Artificial intelligence is fast becoming a powerful force in healthcare, with AI diagnostics leading the charge to deliver faster, more accurate insights for complex neurological conditions.

By transforming brain scans into actionable data, AI is helping clinicians bridge the expertise gap in diagnosing diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia, where specialized knowledge is limited. These advanced systems are not only accelerating diagnosis and treatment, but also democratizing access to expert-level care, empowering medical teams worldwide to improve outcomes and extend the reach of precision medicine far beyond traditional clinical settings, according to David Jones (pictured, right), director of the Neurology Artificial Intelligence Program at the Mayo Clinic.

“I like to maybe make it concrete for people, but what I’m trying to do is actually scale Mayo Clinic knowledge based solidly in Mayo Clinic values,” Jones said. “The needs of the patient come first, and we’re trying to scale our approach to healthcare everywhere. Digitization of the data is a big part of that.”

Jones and Gopal Srinivasan (left), partner at Monitor Deloitte at Deloitte Consulting LLP, spoke with theCUBE’s Savannah Peterson and Dave Vellante at Google Cloud Next, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how the Mayo Clinic is leveraging AI and AI diagnostics to scale expert neurological care, accelerate brain scan analysis and bring life-saving tools to healthcare providers worldwide. (* Disclosure below.)

Scaling AI diagnostics to close the neurology expertise gap

The Mayo Clinic’s neuro-AI program, which launched six years ago, exemplifies this mission to scale expert knowledge. Built in partnership with Google Cloud, the program has developed an advanced platform that digitizes clinical data and connects it with Mayo’s specialized insights. This effort aims to address the stark shortage of behavioral neurologists in the U.S. and empower healthcare providers nationwide.

“When I look at a brain image, like an FDG PET scan of the brain, I can tell you a lot about what’s going on with that patient and that really informs my medical decision-making, the diagnosis, the prognosis, the treatment,” Jones explained. “But not a lot of people can look at that scan. If you digitize that brain scan and then connect Mayo Clinic knowledge to it, you can then deliver that to anywhere where a brain scan takes place.”

By digitizing these critical diagnostic images and embedding the Mayo Clinic’s expert knowledge, the technology provides rapid, accurate decision support wherever brain scans are performed. This has had a profound impact on clinical workflows, improving both the speed and precision of diagnoses.

“Actually, the tool increases accuracy of reading these things by about three to five times,” Jones noted. “And you can do it about 50% faster.”

Cross-functional teams bring solutions to scale

Building such a transformative solution requires close collaboration between healthcare specialists and technologists. At the Mayo Clinic, multidisciplinary teams work side-by-side with data scientists and cloud engineers to ensure the tools are designed for real-world clinical environments.

“You get people with different levels of expertise, but you’re all focused on the needs of the patient,” Jones explained. “Like a technology transformation, what that means is you’ve got domain experts like me and the healthcare question who can sit shoulder to shoulder with the data scientists, who can sit shoulder to shoulder with a IT expert, cloud engineering expert and the administrators, and we can all talk the same language.”

With decades of experience in business transformation, Srinivasan has been instrumental in bringing Google’s AI technology to global clients, including the Mayo Clinic. He described the partnership as a meaningful collaboration that showcases Mayo’s pioneering work in AI.

“I’ve spent about 25 years as a business transformation consultant trying to bring the latest in technology and helping businesses transform themselves so they can be more agile, serve their stakeholders better and obviously be profitable in doing that,” Srinivasan said.

Looking ahead, scaling the technology for widespread use is the next frontier. Jones emphasized the goal of making this diagnostic power accessible well beyond Mayo Clinic’s walls, meeting the widespread demand for these life-saving tools.

“I was just at the American Academy of Neurology meeting in San Diego before I came here,” he said. “A lot of interest in the technology. ‘How do we get it? We’re not at Mayo. How do we get access?’ This is what I’m really focused on right now.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Google Cloud Next:

(* Disclosure: Deloitte Consulting LLP sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Deloitte nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE