CEO of America’s largest public hospital system says he’s ready to replace radiologists with AI.
Mitchell H. Katz, MD, the president and CEO of New York City’s public hospital system, has stated that he is prepared to begin replacing radiologists with artificial intelligence for certain diagnostic tasks as soon as the regulatory environment permits. Speaking at a recent panel, Katz highlighted the potential for AI to serve as the "first reader" for routine screenings such as mammograms and X-rays, which would allow hospitals to realize significant financial savings amid the rising costs of human specialists. In this scenario, radiologists would transition into a secondary role, only reviewing images that the technology identifies as abnormal. Other healthcare leaders supported this vision, citing data that suggests AI can be more accurate than humans in specific low-risk screenings.
However, this proposal has met with intense opposition from medical professionals who argue that such a shift would pose a severe threat to patient safety. Radiologists have criticized hospital administrators for being "confidently uninformed," claiming that current AI technology is not yet capable of providing independent patient care without human oversight.