How artificial intelligence can slowly change the healthcare landscape
The real test for AI systems will depend on the solution’s ability to integrate with the hospital or doctors’ workflow. And like any new-age tech, it will need to pass the ‘Iron Triangle’ of Healthcare test to prove its worth.
Looking at upcoming trends globally and across industry ‘Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML)’ tops the charts. Generally, first thing which comes to mind is machine/cyborg taking over human elements and this has been depicted to various degree in many sci-fi movies.While, the reality is far away from that, it will be unjust to ignore how healthcare is evolving and adopting AI in real lifeto reduce cost and improve patient outcomes.
As per Gartner, most organisations are in the early stage of AI adoption. Only around 6 percent use it; more than 60 percent organizations are still trying to understand it. It will take a while before the real benefits of AI can be leveraged. Here are the sectors where AI has already made a mark or can make a difference in the future.
1. Leveraging vision, deep learning on sensor-based vital data, physicians will be better equipped to diagnose ailments. Medical imaging can be taken to new levels where AI can accurately diagnose and, in some cases, even predict diseases. Blood smears will use vision to count cells and anomalies. ECG and cardio data can pass through AIto predict outcomes and assist physicians in accurate diagnosis.
2. Hospital re-admission has been a grave concern and millions are wasted due to lack of post-operative care. AI can help predict situations like this and can assist care providers in taking extra precautions.
3. Based on the patient case and required procedures, AI can help in planning surgery, help doctors with accurate measurements, and assist during surgery by tracking vital and other data. AI can help surgeons understand surgery outcomes better based on correlations from similar cases.
4. Using NLP and vision, AI can assist doctors with diagnosis, running pharmacy correlations with other drugs, allergy, food etc. AI can help physicians with transcripts and voice-assisted case management. All these integrated with EHR systems will bring in the best-of-the-best values.
5. Virtual health assistants are tools like chat bots or a conversational service using smart speakers and can help answer health-related quires, check symptoms, or assist with appointments etc.
