Antoine Jomier, CEO of Incepto Medical, speaks with Lee Murray, Events Director of HBI, about the rising demand for imaging diagnostics driven by an ageing population and increased medical examinations. Jomier elaborates on how AI technology is helping address these challenges by improving productivity and quality in healthcare. He highlights its significant impact in emergency scenarios and cancer screenings by reducing waiting times and medical errors. Jomier also discusses the essential steps for scaling AI solutions effectively, emphasising the importance of structured governance, stakeholder alignment, and consistency in implementation to realise productivity gains in the healthcare system.

Transcription

[00:00:00] Lee Murray: Today I’m joined by Antoine Jomier, CEO of Incepto Medical. Antoine, thank you for joining me. Hello Lee, thank you for your invitation. Imaging diagnostics is seeing a huge rise in demand from growth in medical examinations, plus aging population, increased complications, against the backdrop of critical workforce challenges across Europe.

What is, could you just describe the context of imaging at the moment and what some of the hope is from technology and AI to help with these challenges?

[00:00:42] Antoine Jomier, CEO, Incepto Medical: Yeah. So as you said, the aging of population and and the use of imaging for prevention or treatment is there is an increasing demand.

And and how do the healthcare system cope with that increasing demand is is driving two major trends. One is the consolidation of the [00:01:00] private sector because you need to operate differently. And then the second trend is there technology that can have a lever that can have a real impact to operate differently and to deliver better quality of care with more productivity.

And AI in imaging has been out now for five to 10 years and is really a major opportunity.

[00:01:27] Lee Murray: So what are some of the best examples you’re seeing of A. I. being deployed? And, what? What can you typically expect as a return on your investment in that space?

[00:01:36] Antoine Jomier, CEO, Incepto Medical: There are two fields where really A.

I. Was restarted. The first field is the field of emergency. And the ability of providing a better triage to patients. Emergency across all country is really a pressure point in terms of patient pathway, in terms of waiting times. And so the ability of having AI with super [00:02:00] strong, what we call negative predictive value.

So the ability to say no when there is nothing. And so to say to an urgentist. That is not necessarily a specialized radiologist to say, no, there is nothing you can discharge this patient faster. And this has brought a lot of positive impact in reducing waiting time increasing the quality of the reading, less medical errors in these in these emergency setups.

The second piece, the second area is screening for screening for cancer, breast screening, lung cancer screening, and really now starting prostate, early breast early cancer prostate cancer diagnosis because you, usually you do two reads and you do a lot of negative exams. And again, AI is really strong to say that there is nothing when there is nothing.

[00:02:50] Lee Murray: And one of the biggest challenges, I think, with any digital transformation, but particularly with artificial intelligence, where the technology is changing minute by minute, hour by hour, [00:03:00] is how do you really deploy that and take that from a small pilot study to scale it across an organization into a health system in a country or a wider level?

So what are some of the steps that you would recommend in being able to scale that?

[00:03:16] Antoine Jomier, CEO, Incepto Medical: Yeah. To us, this is really a fundamental question. There is, you can do a lot of pilots, but if you do it in an unstructured way. Without the right governance and without the right stakeholders around the table, the stakeholder meaning the patient, the radiologist, the radiographer, the management of a radiology company, or the hospital director, you need to get these people around the table.

So what are we trying to address with by implementing AI? And in this specific use case, what is the measure of success? And then to objectivize the impact. What’s at stake is major because the ecosystem [00:04:00] of AI in imaging has been so active that there are about 300 companies and that by 2025 we have We have medical application device, medical device that are cleared, ready to be used for nearly 80 percent of private imaging company.

So 80 percent of the volume of private imaging company could be assisted by AI. And from the evidence we get, publication after publication, there is a increased quality. And 30 percent reading time optimization. And so if you combine this at scale, so 80 percent of your indication where you save 30 percent of the reading time, this is a potential impact of three to seven point EBITDA for for the radiology company.

Then really the governance is super important because what do you do with that productivity? How do you put in place the right incentive? between the [00:05:00] stakeholder so that this this productivity really materialize and you stakeholder to to get after it.

[00:05:07] Lee Murray: So it’s bringing that concrete conversation and aligning everybody’s objectives across a sort of a health system.

[00:05:15] Antoine Jomier, CEO, Incepto Medical: And this is a journey. And as in any journey for any company in the end, it’s about culture, people and consistency over time.

[00:05:27] Lee Murray: Okay. Fascinating. Thank you very much for sharing your insights. And it’s an exciting space. We’ll keep watching. Thank you. Thank you.