AI, Machine Learning as a Service Set to Overhaul Healthcare
Relatively few healthcare organizations have the resources or analytics maturity to develop their own intricate big data analytics infrastructure from scratch, but a growing number of vendors are starting to make the daunting and costly process easier by offering artificial intelligence and machine learning as a service (MLaaS).
The “as a service” industry, which has quickly branched out to cover a number of critical data-heavy use cases, allows organizations to contract with third-party vendors that do the heavy lifting in terms of data collection, storage, movement, and analytics.
Many healthcare stakeholders are already familiar with MLaaS technologies, even if the acronym itself is new to them. On the consumer side, voice-driven personal assistants like Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google Home use machine learning techniques to create smart environments and automate technical tasks.
In the enterprise space, IBM Watson’s commercialized analytics and precision medicine services are a good example, as is Partners Healthcare’s IDEA platform, which uses data lake technology to streamline the development of research projects targeting a number of high-value use cases.
These cloud-based tools reduce development burdens and infrastructure requirements, and often help healthcare organizations get around the talent shortages and limited in-house knowhow that can make it difficult to move forward with the clinical analytics and population health management programs that underpin value-based care.
Turning to the “as a service” sector for solutions will allow organizations to focus on operationalizing insights for imaging analytics, clinical decision support, consumer relations, cybersecurity, and quality assessments instead of getting bogged down in basic hardware and software development.
With a potential global compound annual growth rate of 38.40 percent, the machine learning as a service market is likely to be worth close to $20 billion by 2025, says Transparency Market Research, as stakeholders across multiple industries try to integrate cutting edge analytics capabilities into their platforms and services.
Healthcare alone may account for $5.4 billion in spending by 2022, a separate reportpredicted at the end of 2016.
Coupled with an artificial intelligence sector slated to bring more than $46 billion in revenue to vendors by 2020, MLaaS could fundamentally revolutionize the way healthcare organizations approach big data analytics by making these tools more budget-friendly for a broader range of organizations.
“Intelligent applications based on cognitive computing, artificial intelligence, and deep learning are the next wave of technology transforming how consumers and enterprises work, learn, and play,” says David Schubmehl, research director, cognitive systems and content analytics at IDC, which compiled the AI report.
“These applications are being developed and implemented on cognitive/AI software platforms that offer the tools and capabilities to provide predictions, recommendations, and intelligent assistance through the use of cognitive systems, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
