Artificial Intelligence Across the Radiology Workflow: A Nine-Stage Narrative Review

Abstract

Radiology services are experiencing increasing operational complexity due to rising imaging volumes and expanding coordination demands across interconnected clinical and administrative processes. This complexity is reflected in variability across workflow stages, driven by fragmented information flows, heterogeneous system integration, and multi-source data dependencies. Artificial intelligence (AI) has therefore emerged as a potential tool to support automation, prioritization, and operational efficiency throughout the radiology pathway. This narrative review examines published applications of AI within a nine-stage representation of the radiology workflow. The review synthesizes how AI methods are being investigated to support both administrative coordination and diagnostic processes in radiology practice. AI approaches aim to reduce repetitive administrative tasks, improve resource utilization, and assist radiologists in managing increasing imaging workloads. However, research activity remains uneven, with a strong concentration on later-stage tasks such as image analysis and reporting, while earlier and administrative stages remain comparatively underexplored. By organizing existing research within a unified workflow-oriented framework, this review highlights areas of concentration and identifies gaps across less-studied stages. The findings suggest that while several AI applications are approaching early clinical deployment, broader workflow-level impact remains limited by challenges related to system integration, interoperability, governance, and real world implementation. Continued progress will depend on developing integrated and clinically validated solutions that extend beyond isolated tasks to support coordinated radiology workflow optimization.

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