Following the publication of a Society of Radiographers policy statement for artificial intelligence by the UK Council in January last year, a working party on the subject of AI was established in late September.
It was planned that the working party would be in place until April this year. The members of the working party are volunteers, who submitted an expression of interest following a call in Synergy News and via SCoR social media platforms.
The members of the working party were subsequently selected to represent a range of clinical modalities, all four nations of the UK, and were drawn from clinical practice, research and academia, and wider stakeholders, including industry.
The working party members are: President of the SCoR Chris Kalinka; Dr Christina Malamateniou (chair); Jackie Matthew (vice-chair); Dr Sonyia McFadden; Dr Nick Woznitza; Dr Andrew England; Noorayen Alware; Wendy Town; Claire Currie; Simon Goldsworthy; Emily Skelton; Kwun-ye Chu; Paul Matthews; Rebecca Hawkesford; Yasmin McQuinlan and Richard Tucker. Dr Tracy O’Regan is the professional officer appointed to the group.
The broad purpose of convening the working party was to represent the voices of the radiographic workforce in the developing field of AI technology, with aims to strengthen or improve care in clinical imaging and radiotherapy.
The working party plans to provide baseline guidance for education, research, clinical practice and partnership working. The guidance will be reviewed by the SCoR Informatics Group and SCoR Patient Advisory Group with further comments sought from SCoR Clinical Advisory Groups via Synapse workspaces. The resulting recommendations are intended to be for all individuals working within the radiographic workforce, service managers, academic institutions and the SCoR.
It is expected that the AI guidance will require regular updating, given the fast-paced and evolving nature of the field. There is currently extensive philosophical, ethical, professional and legal debate across a range of fields.
The first edition of the SCoR guidance for AI is in preparation and it is expected that the outputs of the working party will inform a number of documents that the SCoR currently has in the process of review this year. These are the SCoR Education and Career Framework, the SCoR Research Strategy for 2021-2025 and the joint SCoR/Royal College of Radiologists Quality Standards for Imaging.