A pilot study has begun in the U.K. of clinical decision support (CDS) software based on referral guidelines from the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR).
The trial of the iRefer CDS software was launched on 15 November as part of a six-month pilot program at London North West University Healthcare National Health Service (NHS) Trust. The pilot follows similar trials in Australia, Canada, and the Middle East.
iRefer will be used for imaging requests by clinicians in primary care, acute ambulatory care, and rheumatology before wider release. The software provides a user-friendly interface to guide referring clinicians through making the most appropriate imaging requests for patients, based upon their clinical symptoms and exam findings. The application then sends requests electronically and tracks their results via the hospital trust's integrated IT systems.
The software incorporates the RCR's iRefer radiology referral guidelines into software developed by Canadian CDS firm MedCurrent.
![A normal mammogram confirmed by three-year radiologic follow-up illustrates reader-marked regions of interest (ROIs) during (A) unaided (round 1) and (B) artificial intelligence (AI)–assisted (round 2) reading. Each colored dot represents an ROI for recall by a human reader. Readers could mark more than one ROI per case, represented by multiple dots of the same color. During AI-assisted reading, the AI system displayed three visible prompts: two with suspicion of malignancy scores of 35% (left mediolateral oblique [L MLO] and craniocaudal [L CC]) and one with a suspicion of malignancy score of 10% (right craniocaudal [R CC]), shown as polygonal overlays. Without AI, six of 10 readers (60%) marked a false-positive ROI. With AI assistance, this fell to two of 10 (20%). R MLO = right mediolateral oblique.](https://img.auntminnieeurope.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/07/2026-07-14-radiology-mammogram-ai-auto-bias.H0bYO8QlWs.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
