Artificial Intelligence or AI has accelerated the growth in various industries. The growth has been pretty quick and sometimes, totally unpredictable. So, what is AI?
AI is a combination of various technologies that imitate human intelligence. It is an essential part of the technology industry. The core concepts of AI include programming computers for certain human traits like:
- Knowledge
- Reasoning
- Problem solving
- Perception
- Learning
- Planning
- Ability to manipulate and move objects
Artificial Intelligence in healthcare
Artificial Intelligence has impacted modern healthcare industry to a great extent. With the application of AI, there has been tremendous changes in the way patients are treated by doctors.
AI can be applied to both ordinate and inordinate data, with techniques including machine learning and natural language processing. Nurses and doctors are adopting technology to
- Reduce manual work
- Provide more accurate service
- Give impact interventions to patients
AI helps reduce the repetitive manual work and human intervention in data analysis. A good example of this is predictive diagnosis through which medical condition possibilities can be diagnosed by monitoring the vital stats and other necessary parameters. This helps providers prepare and provide necessary proactive care as foreseen by AI systems. The predictive possibilities of AI transcends to patient experience as well. Using chatbots and AI for responses to patients reduces the burden on manual intervention for scheduling appointments, responding to common queries on the website/chatbot/sms/apps, analyzing x-ray and basic scans and much more. This can help enhance patient experience with quick response times and avoid unnecessary hospital visits.
Medication management to ensure patients are taking medicine on time and prescribing medicine according to progress is also possible with artificial intelligence and this avoids repetitive human tasks.
The promise of AI in the matters of health, including that of life and death critical issues is highly impressive.
Impacts of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare industry
The following are the top seven impacts in the healthcare industry that are most likely to happen with the advent of artificial intelligence within the next decade.
- Reducing the burden of EHR usage – EHRs are instrumental in the healthcare industry’s journey towards digitization. But the switch brought problems such as cognitive overload, endless documentation, and user burnout. EHR developers are now adopting AI for creating intuitive interfaces and automating some routine processes. Artificial intelligence may also help to process routine requests from the inbox, like medication refills and result notifications. It may also help to prioritize tasks that truly require the clinician’s attention making it easier for users to work through their to-do lists.
- Operating mind and machine through brain-computer interfaces – AI can create direct interfaces between technology and the human mind without the need for keyboards, mice, and monitors. It is a cutting-edge area of research that has significant applications for some patients. Neurological diseases and nervous system trauma can affect abilities to speak, move, and interact meaningfully with people and their environments. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) backed by AI could restore those fundamental experiences to those who feared them lost forever. Brain-computer interfaces could drastically improve quality of life for patients with ALS, strokes, or locked-in syndrome, as well as the 500,000 people worldwide who experience spinal cord injuries every year.
- Inventing cutting-edge radiology tools – MRI machines, CT scanners, and x-rays produce radiology images that offer non-invasive visibility into the inner workings of the human body. But many diagnostic processes still rely on physical tissue samples obtained through biopsies, which carry risks including the potential for infection. AI will enable the next generation of radiology tools that are accurate and detailed enough to replace the need for tissue samples in some cases, experts predict.
- Improving care accessibility to underserved and developing regions – There is severe shortages of trained healthcare providers like including ultrasound technicians and radiologists. This significantly limits access to life-saving care in developing nations around the world. AI could lessen the impacts of severe deficit of qualified clinical staff by taking over some of the diagnostic duties allocated to humans.
- Building intelligent medical devices and machines – Smart devices are taking over the consumer environment, ranging from offering real-time video from the inside of a refrigerator to cars that can detect when the driver is distracted. In the medical environment, smart devices are critical for monitoring patients in the ICU and elsewhere. Using artificial intelligence to enhance the ability to identify deterioration, suggest that sepsis is taking hold, or sense the development of complications can significantly improve outcomes and may reduce costs related to hospital-acquired condition penalties.
- Monitoring health through wearable and personal devices – Almost all patients now have access to devices with sensors that can collect valuable data about their health. From smartphones with step trackers to wearable that can track a heartbeat around the clock, a growing proportion of health-related data is generated on the go. Collecting and analyzing such data and supplementing the same with patient-provided information (through apps and other home monitoring devices) can offer a unique perspective into individual and population health. Artificial intelligence will play a significant role in extracting actionable insights from this large trove of data.
- Robotic assistance – Patients might not be comfortable with robots performing a surgery on them. How about combining the skills of a competent surgeon and the technical brilliance of a robot? That makes for a surgery with impressive levels of precision, steadiness and accuracy. And when we have AI guiding the hand of the surgeon through the help of robots, it opens the doors to extremely high levels of precision, and better patient outcomes. The AI assistant can provide patient’s past and present health details and give suggestions that would help in the diagnosis. Surgical bots use computer vision to perform surgeries after accurately calculating human body measurements. When a surgeon performs a complex surgery, AI can provide real time data that helps in identifying and reducing risk, and improving quality. Highly precise movements are made the robot hands so any tremors in the surgeon’s hands will be neutralized completely, enabling the progress and success of micro surgeries.
Benefits of Incorporating AI in Healthcare
Healthcare is definitely improving through AI. Patients and medical practitioners experience the following benefits,
- Predictive medical care – Predictive healthcare will lead to an evolving treatment model wherein the patient data is reviewed constantly to check for any anomalies, followed by suggestions of medical intervention.
- Personalized medication – AI makes it possible for patients to have personalized care based on their body constitution and past medical history.
- Better diagnosis – Fast research and cross-referencing of data leads to better diagnosis of diseases
- Advanced treatment plans – New treatment methods are generated and introduced, including robotic surgery, cell biology, stem therapy, genomics and proteomics.
- Lower liability for hospital – Continuous monitoring of patients would ensure timely care and treatment and even reduced hospital stay.
- Cost savings for patient and medical care provider – AI can make healthcare both efficient and affordable as it helps in
- Guiding treatment choice
- Making more efficient diagnosis
- Helping patients make better decisions regarding their health
- Taking important decisions in drug development.
The healthcare industry is evolving with Artificial Intelligence. It has a great impact on the role of doctors and patients. There are some challenges like managing and integrating large data sets that need addressing, but the benefits outweigh them, and AI is here to grow and expand. AI will change every medical word – in diagnosis, in treatment, in disease detection, in treatment disciplines and more.
Reference
https://www.cabotsolutions.com/revolutionizing-modern-healthcare-with-internet-of-things
https://healthitanalytics.com/features/what-is-the-role-of-natural-language-processing-in-healthcare
https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/mhealth-for-children-4-concepts-that-could-change-the-world
https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/mhealth-wearables-ai-used-to-detect-diabetes-in-ones-heart-rate
