Artificial intelligence can draft preliminary interpretations of echocardiograms with accuracy comparable to reports prepared by sonographers and cardiologists, and it can cut the time cardiologists spend finalizing each scan by nearly half, according to preliminary late-breaking research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2026 in Chicago. The independent trial, described in a release link distributed via NEWMEDIAWIRE, tested whether an AI tool could produce a full draft report, including measurements and interpretations, for a common cardiac exam.
An echocardiogram, or heart ultrasound, is the most widely used form of heart imaging. Typically a sonographer acquires the images and a cardiologist reviews them and writes a report assessing heart structures and function. In the study, an AI tool, a sonographer and a cardiologist each prepared preliminary reports for the same 1,200 echocardiograms previously acquired during routine care. Those drafts were randomly assigned to reviewing cardiologists who did not know who or what produced the first version.
Cardiologists made substantial changes to 50.6% of AI-generated drafts, compared with 49.7% of drafts prepared by sonographers and cardiologists, meeting the study's criteria for the AI approach to be considered non-inferior. Reviewing cardiologists spent an average of 4.6 minutes per echocardiogram finalizing AI drafts versus 8.5 minutes without AI assistance, a time savings of about 46%. AI-assisted reports were also more consistent with historical reports in the medical record, and reviewers could not identify whether a draft came from the AI tool or a human.
"What surprised us was the extent to which using AI-generated reports reduced the time cardiologists needed to interpret echocardiograms," said co-senior author Keane K. Lee, M.D., M.S., a cardiologist at Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Homestead Medical Center. He said the savings could mean faster turnaround of results and more access to care for patients, and more time with patients for cardiologists, while stressing that "AI cannot, however, replace the human team." The cardiologist remains responsible for certifying the final report and applying clinical judgment.
The efficiency findings carry weight given workforce projections. A July 2026 study in the Journal of the American Heart Association cited estimates of a national shortfall of about 7,000 cardiologists by 2036, underscoring the need for strategies to strengthen the specialty. The trial included exams from 21 Kaiser Permanente Northern California medical centers, with nine sonographers and 20 cardiologists participating. Limitations include that it did not test long-term patient health outcomes, and more research is needed in real-world settings at larger scale.
The findings are considered preliminary because abstracts presented at the Association's Scientific Sessions 2026 are not peer-reviewed until published as full manuscripts. The abstract is available in the meeting's 2026 Online Program Planner, and the Association's guidance on the technology appears in Use of Artificial Intelligence in Improving Outcomes in Heart Disease A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association. The original release is posted on www.newmediawire.com.
