Glossary
Prospective Validation
Also called: prospective study
Evaluating a model on patients enrolled after the study begins, in the real workflow, rather than on previously collected data.
Prospective validation deploys the model in live clinical conditions and measures what happens. It captures the real case mix, real image quality, real time pressure, and the effect of the model on clinician behavior ... none of which retrospective evaluation can see.
Where This Gets Misread
Most authorized AI devices were cleared on retrospective data. That is not a scandal, it is the regulatory standard, but it means the evidence describes how a model scores on stored images rather than what happens to patients when it is switched on. Those are different questions.