Why this matters
Patients now read their radiology reports in the portal, often before anyone explains them. Words like "degenerative changes" or "opacity" lead to worried calls and messages, and the front office ends up translating.
In this module you build an Airia agent that turns the findings and impression into four to six plain sentences, leaves the report header out (name, date of birth, MRN, accession number, ordering provider, exam date) and answers diagnosis or treatment questions with one fixed sentence that sends the patient to their provider. A clinician still approves every summary.
This lesson is training, not legal advice. A guardrail does not make a tool HIPAA compliant on its own: your organization also needs a Business Associate Agreement with any vendor that handles PHI, its own policies, access controls and staff training. Ask your compliance officer before any real patient data goes near an AI tool. Every patient in this lesson is made up (Pat Example, MRN 000-TEST).
What you’ll build
An Airia agent, Radiology Plain-Language Summary, that uses only FINDINGS and IMPRESSION and writes at a 6th-grade level.
A tested summary of a made-up chest X-ray with no identifiers, and a tested refusal of "is it cancer, what should I take?".
What you need
- Nothing to start the practiceThe practice is built from real Airia screens and touches no account.
- An Airia account, to do it for realCheck airia.com for plans and agent limits.
- A made-up reportCopy the structure of a real one (header, FINDINGS, IMPRESSION) with invented details.
Concepts
2 ideas you’ll use in the practice.
Use the body, not the header
A report header is all identifiers. The summary only needs the findings and the impression, so the instructions name those two sections and list every header field the agent must never copy.
Better still, paste only the findings and impression. The agent kept the header out of its summary in our test, but the model still received it. A redaction guardrail on the input is the stronger control.
Read for what it added
Our summary said the lungs showed "no sign of fluid or infection". The report never mentioned infection. Plain-language rewrites drift toward reassurance, and a patient takes every sentence as a clinical statement.
That is why a clinician approves each summary, and why the instructions include a fixed refusal for diagnosis, prognosis and treatment questions.
Practice
Do every step yourself in a practice copy of the real tool. It checks your work, and “Do it for me” finishes any step you get stuck on.
Do it for real
Now repeat it in your own account. Tick each step as you go.
Quick check
3 questions to check you’ve got it.
1. Which part of the report does the summary need?
- FINDINGS and IMPRESSION
- The header
- All of it
Show the answer
FINDINGS and IMPRESSION. The header only identifies the patient and the exam.
2. The summary says "no sign of infection" and the report does not. What now?
- A clinician corrects it before it goes out
- Send it, it is reassuring
- Delete the agent
Show the answer
A clinician corrects it before it goes out. Anything the report did not say is a clinical claim nobody made.
3. A patient asks "is it cancer?". What should the agent do?
- Give the fixed refusal and send them to their provider
- Estimate the likelihood
- Suggest treatment
Show the answer
Give the fixed refusal and send them to their provider. Diagnosis belongs to the provider. The fixed sentence makes the safe answer the only answer.
Airia: Test the Appeal-letter Agent for Leaks Before Rollout
Last, test the appeal-letter agent for leaks with an Airia Evaluation before anyone relies on it.
Start module 4 →