How can healthcare benefit from AI?

With the recent outbreak of the Coronavirus in China, the world has become increasingly risky and made us realize that the world is extremely connected now. Could really healthcare benefit from AI? It doesn’t take much to realize that we surely need better healthcare facilities for the changing environment and minimize the risks of coming under terrible health and economic recession. 

Health is one aspect of paramount importance and it can make or break economies. A healthy and growing labor force needs better facilities and quicker systems to enhance healthy living and the ability to monitor in situations that might be dangerous for human beings vulnerable to illnesses and certain communicable viruses and bacterial infections.

Artificial Intelligence can play very important roles and take over the tasks very sensitive and highly risky for humans. A machine shall act as a perfect (or even better) substitute to perform tasks which could put lives on danger and also act as a great barrier against the attacks of diseases on a global level. 

Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare – main benefits!

Following are some areas where healthcare can utilize the various advantages that AI may provide:

• How could it handle data for medical professionals? – Physicians and medical staff could use Machine Learning and Data Analytics to analyze their data and help construct useful and efficient algorithms to scale up the process and deliver quicker and more effective healthcare procedures.
  
  Medical professionals may improve their deductions based on the data-driven information presented and predicted through the machines and leave lesser area for wrong estimations and get closer to the desired results. E.g. IBM Watson Computer System for helping treatment in cancer patients using immunotherapy as a promising research venture. Electronic Health records being supervised by AI-infused machines could carry on the mundane and dangerous tasks at hand.

• Is there a good possibility of profit-making? – There is also a magnificent potential for firms to increase their revenue and maximize profits by optimizing their resources. To bridge the gap between the patient influx and available doctors, AI could be used as a mechanism to aid fewer doctors in catering to the various needs of patients and victims according to priority and risks. Healthcare providers and even chemists could use AI to understand patterns in health and recommend suitable options to make decisions effectively. E.g. Use of healthcare applications to help patients and increase cost-effectiveness. Radiology could also find extensive use in the up-gradation of equipment and advance innovations in this field. Developing nations could effectively use this to cut down their costs and cater extensively to a greater base population while also minimizing their expenses which would be hindered by less ability to invest in human or machine capital repetitively otherwise. 

• Where and how will the data be handled with the help of AI? – Healthcare professionals are trying to create online databases to preserve data and important medical records for future references with the help of technology and use AI to make predictions and incorporate various important analyses regarding the health setup and emergence of new trends. AI-infused technology shall give doctors an edge over critical lifesaving conditions. Doctors and surgeons could thus prioritize critical cases over seemingly easier ones being shifted to an automated process.

• Complementing the human brain with technological and automated prowess is a great way to synthesize the best of both worlds – Neurology could be complemented with Artificial Intelligence to make it easier to come up with groundbreaking discoveries and drastically help improve the quality of life. Communications would become easier for patients with movement, speaking and hearing problems. Fundamental experiences of life could be delivered back to patients. Antibiotic resistance could be effectively analyzed and keep safe even the individuals working in the hospital or medical laboratory premises.

• Decision Making could be highly strategy-oriented with the influx of AI – Humans are prone to making mistakes with greater chances of committing an error. In situations, where a slight error could risk a life tremendously, AI could intervene and minimize the error of making a mistake while also helping in making decisions that are more data-driven and accurate. Clinical decision support and scoring to predict risks are a few of the various utilities AI can provide when used by the healthcare industry.

Now you know that healthcare can benefit from AI

We can easily understand that AI is revolutionizing the world and creating ripples leading to eventually huge transformations in various sectors, health is one of the most important. However, emotions and the ability to invest in helping people is a skill even machines cannot imitate. Medical professionals need to account for the various errors and over-dependence that could come up with the inclusion of AI and be prepared for it.

While the idea is much debated upon, an extreme approach would help the least. Better would be to analyze the pros and cons of working in such an environment and not sacrifice ethics along the way.