Artificial Intelligence The Upcoming Opportunity For Healthcare

• Vikas Kumar
• September 15, 2021
• BLOG, HEALTHCARE
• 0 Comments

Healthcare sector is the most important sector to look forward to since it has a direct impact on the present and future generations of the human race. The one field in which the human race has achieved enormous growth, development and success, is the field of technology. Thus, it can be inferred that healthcare and technology are the two most significant sectors and thus hold the power to instigate a paradigm shift in the functioning of this race. Owing to this, the amalgamation of the two sectors can do wonders for the future generations. When technology is being discussed, the artificial intelligence cannot be left behind since it is one technology that holds the potential to take the form of a new human race in the coming future. Artificial Intelligence revolves around the idea of building machines which are capable of thinking like humans. So, it is important to understand the place and future of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare. When it comes to health, particularly in the matters of life and death, the human race is bent upon improving the outcomes and thus it would be interesting to access the promise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve these outcomes. According to research, it was found that embracing AI technologies can decrease the healthcare costs by 50%, while increasing the patient outcome by more than 50%.

As far as the growth of AI is concerned, Accenture estimated that AI in healthcare would grow at a 40% annual compounded growth rate in the coming few years. It further stated that this technology will open doors for an opportunity worth $150 billion in industry savings by 2026. The positives of AI in healthcare are uncountable. AI can supplement the thought process of a physician and can provide altogether a different perspective to a problem. It can expose concealed health markers that medical professionals do not detect manually. AI can observe and interpret both structured and unstructured data. It can analyze the results and experience of practitioners from across the healthcare system instantaneously which is far beyond the capabilities of an individual. Apart from this, it has the capacity to identify trends and predict potential future health issues, which if done manually by a medical expert, can take a significant amount of time which can then increase the ill effects of a life-threatening disease. Such effects of life-threatening disease can be mitigated if diagnosed in a stipulated time period. This can be done by integration of AI in the healthcare industry. Following are some other opportunities that have emerged as an outcome of the adoption of AI in healthcare:

• Robotic Surgery: Robots empowered with Artificial Intelligence are progressively supporting microsurgical procedures to decrease surgeon disparities that could affect patient recovery. AI enabled robots can help minimize or even eliminate the risk of human error. The approach used in robotic surgery is minimally invasive thereby increasing the speed of recovery. According to Forbes, robots can analyze data from pre-op medical records. This can facilitate a surgeon during surgery and can then lead to a reduction of 21% in the recovery expenses of a patient.
• Facilitate in diagnosis: Artificial Intelligence in medicine has the capability to individualize a recommendation, based on a plethora of information known and available about an individual patient like the specific observations of the individual, the knowledge of interactions of medications and the impact of lab findings.  These are then compared and contrasted with the data available from the past experiences like the outcomes of different treatment approaches in other people which match the current situation and that can be used to make the diagnosis which would have otherwise taken a lot of time and resources if done manually. It can analyze thousands of medical papers using natural language processing to come up with the best treatment plans. According to the UK’s healthcare system, the predictions made in an early stage of cancer will prevent thousands of cancer-related deaths by 2033.
• Virtual nursing assistants: Virtual nursing assistants is a way that can reduce redundant hospital visits thereby decreasing the burden on medical professionals. Virtual nursing assistants can provide assistance to the patients 24/7 and so the patients will have the answers to questions about medications and can get support along with the round-the-clock monitoring. According to Syneos Health Communications, 64% of patients stated that they would be comfy with AI virtual nurse assistants. Forbes stated in one of its reports that virtual nursing assistants are capable of reducing the burden and work pressure on medical resources which will then save US$20 billion annually of the healthcare industry.
• Administrative workflow assistance: Administrative work requires a lot of time and documentation along with file management which is a very tedious task. It requires a lot of resources to maintain administrative tasks. The use of AI in the management of administrative work can be a way out. Automation of administrative workflow can help medical professionals in prioritizing crucial aspects thereby facilitating them in saving time on routine tasks. AI-powered solutions can rely on machine learning that can facilitate the healthcare providers to cut documentation time and increase reporting quality which will then help physicians provide a more tailored and efficient treatment experience. It is estimated that AI in administrative tasks could result in savings of US$18 billion for the healthcare industry.
• Advanced analytics and research: AI has the capacity to process a huge amount of structured and unstructured patient big data. AI has the potential of performing data-mining activities on large sets of patient and population health data, addressing significant gaps in automating the clinical workflow. Also, analytics can help in moving deeper into the pathology test results to the pixel level on tremendously huge digital images which can then permit providers to identify nuances that may escape the human eye. Apart from this, one of the hardest parts of work in this data-driven age is to integrate the data at one place leading to data quality and integrity issues. Thus, AI can facilitate data integration thereby managing the muddle of data formats, structured & unstructured inputs and incomplete records. This helps in engaging meaningful risk stratification, predictive analytics and clinical decision support.

It can be thus be concluded that there is a bright future for the implementation of AI in healthcare. AI holds the capability of enlightening the medical professionals in the most unique and astonishing manner thereby facilitating in reaching the new horizons in the medical field. AI beholds a future in the healthcare sector that will change the way the things are being managed and operated in the present age and thus improve the patient outcomes which is the ultimate goal of the healthcare industry.