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More AI clearances won’t save radiology. Smarter triage just might. 🩻
Everyone is debating whether AI will replace radiologists. But the real bottleneck in emergency radiology isn’t intelligence. It’s time.
This week, a2z Radiology AI received FDA clearance for its Abdo-Triage software to flag 10 additional findings on abdomen-pelvis CT scans, according to Radiology Business. That brings the company’s total triage portfolio to 17 findings across two FDA-cleared devices.
A Boston-based startup founded in 2024. Already with two cleared products.
That is not a slow regulatory story. That is a sprint.
🔹 The newly cleared product targets abdomen-pelvis CT, one of the most time-sensitive scan categories in emergency medicine.
🔹 The software is designed to help clinical teams triage a broader range of findings and prioritize urgent cases.
🔹 A previous clearance was already granted in late 2025, just months after the company launched.
Here is what I keep thinking about from my work at Oatmeal Health.
Lung cancer screening has the same core problem. You can have a patient with a suspicious nodule sitting in a queue while the system treats it like routine. The scan happened. The AI flagged it. But if no one acts on it fast, the window closes.
Triage AI does not replace the radiologist. It changes the sequence. It tells the team what to look at first.
That distinction matters enormously in outcomes.
⚡ The value of radiology AI is not just what it detects. It is how it reorders the workflow around what actually needs to move fast.
A startup founded in 2024 earning two FDA clearances by September 2026 tells you where the regulatory momentum is heading. The agency is getting more comfortable with AI triage tools that have a defined, narrow scope.
Narrow scope done well beats broad claims done poorly every time.
As we build AI for lung cancer screening, this is the model I respect. Clear clinical purpose. Defined workflow integration. Regulatory credibility earned through specificity, not hype.
The radiology practices that win the next five years will not be the ones with the most AI vendors. They will be the ones that figured out what to prioritize, and built systems that act on that priority in real time.
👉 Follow Jonathan Govette, CEO of Oatmeal Health, for daily healthcare insights on LinkedIn. Deeper dives in The Oatmeal Bite on Substack: https://news.oatmealhealth.com
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Author:
CEO/Co-Founder @ Oatmeal Health | AI Lung Cancer Screening | Almost Became a Doctor | Engineer | Follow to Share What I’ve Learned Along the Way
I help patients get the care they need earlier, preventing late-stage cancer.
That’s been the throughline across three companies and almost 20 years in healthcare. At ReferralMD, we fixed broken referral networks so patients didn’t fall through the cracks. At Oatmeal Health, it’s lung cancer: building the diagnostic and screening infrastructure so the 85% of cases caught too late get caught early instead.
Today as CEO of Oatmeal Health, I lead a team embedding AI into radiology workflows to turn routine lung CT scans into reimbursable cancer risk assessments. We partner with FQHCs to reach underserved communities, and with health systems and payers to make early detection economically sustainable. Think HeartFlow or Cleerly, but for lungs.
Between companies, I advised at Techstars and Plug and Play, mentoring founders building in digital health. That experience shaped how I think about what separates companies that ship from companies that stall: distribution, reimbursement, and clinical trust, not just technology.
I’m a CancerX alumnus, a 3x healthcare founder, and someone who believes the biggest problems in cancer aren’t scientific. They’re operational.
We’re hiring mission-driven builders at Oatmeal Health. If you want to work on something that matters, reach out.
When I’m not working, I’m traveling, mentoring, and keeping up with one very energetic husky. 🐾
Substack – The Oatmeal Bite:
Millions of patients get less care because of who they are, where they live, or how they look. I’m fighting to change that. CEO @OatmealHealth, a startup built for the underserved. The Oatmeal Bite: intel for clinicians, investors, and advocates.
Jonathan Govette
CEO of Oatmeal Health
Substack:
https://oatmealhealthjonathangovette.substack.com/
