ClinValAI: A framework for developing Cloud-based infrastructures for the External Clinical Validation of AI in Medical Imaging

Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms showcase the potential to steer a paradigm shift in clinical medicine, especially medical imaging. Concerns associated with model generalizability and biases necessitate rigorous external validation of AI algorithms prior to their adoption into clinical workflows. To address the barriers associated with patient privacy, intellectual property, and diverse model requirements, we introduce ClinValAI, a framework for establishing robust cloud-based infrastructures to clinically validate AI algorithms in medical imaging. By featuring dedicated workflows for data ingestion, algorithm scoring, and output processing, we propose an easily customizable method to assess AI models and investigate biases. Our novel orchestration mechanism facilitates utilizing the complete potential of the cloud computing environment. ClinValAI's input auditing and standardization mechanisms ensure that inputs consistent with model prerequisites are provided to the algorithm for a streamlined validation. The scoring workflow comprises multiple steps to facilitate consistent inferencing and systematic troubleshooting. The output processing workflow helps identify and analyze samples with missing results and aggregates final outputs for downstream analysis. We demonstrate the usability of our work by evaluating a state-of-the-art breast cancer risk prediction algorithm on a large and diverse dataset of 2D screening mammograms. We perform comprehensive statistical analysis to study model calibration and evaluate performance on important factors, including breast density, age, and race, to identify latent biases. ClinValAI provides a holistic framework to validate medical imaging models and has the potential to advance the development of generalizable AI models in clinical medicine and promote health equity.