You’ve probably heard a lot about how Artificial Intelligence is transforming healthcare, but what does that even mean, exactly?
It’s not all hype: AI is making a meaningful difference in patient outcomes and care.
In this article, we’ll explore five concrete examples of AI already in use and how this emerging technology aims to improve everything from hospital administration to surgical procedures.
We’ll cover:
Healthcare AI and its impact
The benefits of healthcare AI
How does AI help reduce errors and improve patient outcomes?
Who exactly is using AI in healthcare today in the real world?
Let’s get down to business!
What is AI in healthcare, and why does it matter?
AI in healthcare refers to the use of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning in the medical field.
Over time, the rising tide of AI has the potential to improve health outcomes, reduce costs, and enhance the patient experience.
With AI, computers can analyze huge amounts of data to detect patterns and insights that humans may miss.
Moreover, AI systems are capable of learning over time and can provide predictive analytics to determine a patient's risk of disease or the best course of treatment.
With AI projected to be a $187 billion industry in healthcare by 2030, it’s clear this is much more than a passing fad. AI and medicine are now inextricable, and this is a tendency that will only grow stronger in the future.
It’s also worth noting that AI is enhancing human capabilities instead of replacing them outright!
Better healthcare through Artificial Intelligence
Healthcare AI is already bringing a host of benefits with it, such as:
Nipping problems in the bud and providing personalized care. AI is diagnosing diseases and creating personalized treatment plans, significantly improving health outcomes.
Making healthcare far more accessible. The advancement of AI in healthcare has the potential to broaden access to care and diminish healthcare costs.
A macro and micro-level data analysis. AI's ability to process vast amounts of health data helps identify patterns, leading to enhanced diagnoses and targeted treatments.
Better disease detection. AI systems match human physicians in accuracy for detecting certain cancers and eye diseases. In some cases, they’re already beating them!
Optimizing treatment options: AI helps doctors choose the most effective treatment plans by considering patients' unique health histories and conditions.
Nurses are now virtual. AI-powered virtual assistants offer round-the-clock monitoring and support, necessary for chronic conditions such as diabetes or heart disease. They also provide health information, and medication reminders, and alert professionals to significant health changes.
Support for patients in remote areas. AI extends critical health services to remote regions, offering timely interventions when in-person doctor visits are not possible.
They make healthcare admin more streamlined. By automating administrative tasks like paperwork, billing, and scheduling, healthcare AI enables providers to focus more on patient care and less on tiresome bureaucratic processes.
It minimizes dosage errors. AI tools, analogous to household devices, could monitor and alert to misuse or errors in medication usage.
AI stands as a vigilant guard against financial abuses. Healthcare fraud escalates costs to an estimated $380 billion annually. By analyzing patterns in insurance claims, AI can uncover irregularities, from exaggerated billing to unnecessary testing, essentially safeguarding against practices that inflate medical expenses for consumers.
Reducing errors, and improving outcomes
As we mentioned above, another important feature of healthcare AI is being able to provide much better patient outcomes.
But let’s take a look at how it’s doing this:
Diagnostic tools powered by AI delve into patients' medical records, vital signs, and test results, flagging potential health issues early on. It's about preempting problems before they worsen, offering a head start in the race against illness.
In surgery, AI robots are enabling all-new levels of accuracy. They steady surgeons' hands, eliminate the impact of natural tremors and enable minimally invasive techniques with uncanny accuracy.
These technological advances promise reduced blood loss, lower infection rates, and diminished pain following surgery, enhancing patient recovery experiences.
AI's role in pathology and radiology introduces a groundbreaking approach to disease detection. By analyzing slides and scans, AI can uncover signs of diseases, such as cancer, that might slip the naked eye.
This technology has already outperformed pathologists in identifying cancerous changes.
Radiologists are also embracing healthcare AI, often taking it as a "second set of eyes" for reviewing X-rays, CT scans, and more. This collaboration drastically reduced the rate of human error.
Who is using AI in healthcare today?
Many major tech companies and healthcare organizations are investing in and implementing AI.
Some of the biggest players leading the charge include:
IBM Watson Health is using AI to help identify health risks, diagnose diseases, match patients with clinical trials, and more. Their AI systems are already deployed in major hospitals and health systems around the world.
Google's DeepMind has collaborated with the UK's National Health Service to develop an AI that can analyze CT and MRI scans to detect abnormalities. They've also created AI that can predict when patients may experience acute kidney failure.
Microsoft is working with healthcare organizations to apply AI for administrative tasks like revenue cycle management as well as clinical use cases like analyzing EKGs and detecting diabetic retinopathy.
Philips has developed AI-enabled devices and software for use in hospitals and at home. This includes an AI system that analyzes CT scans to detect COVID-19 and an AI that helps clinicians monitor patients in the ICU.
Nvidia has created AI platforms for radiology, pathology, and genomics that are being used by healthcare organizations around the world. Their AI can detect anomalies in medical scans, analyze tissue samples, and gain insights from complex genomic data.
Many innovative startups are also working on AI for healthcare. Companies like Babylon Health, Olive, and Anthropic are developing AI virtual health assistants, automating hospital processes, and trying to guarantee that AI systems stay safe and aligned with human values.
5 real-world examples of healthcare AI in action
We’ve already gone over general use cases. But what are some actual examples of healthcare AI making our lives better and healthier?
Check these out:
They can talk! AI systems like Lindy can provide support for doctors and patients. They can answer questions, take notes, and enter them into EHRs. They can also provide life guidance and companionship through mood-tracking features.
They offer diagnostic tools. AI systems like IDx-DR can detect diabetic retinopathy by analyzing retinal scans. The FDA approved IDx-DR for autonomous detection of the disease. Doctors can now just focus on treatment.
Real-life surgery bots. The da Vinci surgical system uses AI to translate a surgeon's hand movements into precise micro-movements for minimally invasive surgeries. The da Vinci system currently has more than 8 million surgeries under its belt.
Electronic health records (EHR) analysis. AI is helping make sense of the huge amounts of data in EHR systems. Systems can analyze a patient's medical history to detect patterns, flag high-risk patients, and even preemptively suggest diagnoses or treatments doctors may have missed.
Drug development is faster. AI is speeding up the drug discovery process. Systems can analyze massive amounts of data to detect patterns that lead to new insights into diseases and potential treatments. AI drug discovery startups like Exscientia and Insilico Medicine are developing AI to discover new drugs faster – and at a far lower cost.
FAQs
What types of tasks can AI help automate in healthcare?
Healthcare AI has the potential to completely automate tasks like:
Processing medical records and insurance claims
Managing patient schedules and coordinating care
Monitoring patients and vital signs
Transcribing notes and diagnosing certain conditions
Can AI replace human physicians and nurses?
No, not yet, and maybe not ever. AI systems today are designed to assist humans, not replace them. Yes, AI may take over certain routine tasks, but human judgment, empathy, and skill are still necessary to offer quality care. It’s about collaboration, where AI automates tasks, and humans provide empathy, critical thinking, and judgment.
How can patients benefit from AI in healthcare?
Healthcare AI is a win/win for patients and doctors in a variety of ways:
Quicker diagnoses and treatment. AI can help analyze huge amounts of data to detect diseases earlier.
Personalized care. AI systems can consider a patient's unique medical history, genes, and lifestyle to create customized treatment plans.
24/7 monitoring and support. AI virtual assistants and chatbots can provide patients with round-the-clock help with health questions and concerns.
Fewer errors. AI has the potential to minimize human errors in areas like dosage miscalculations, unnecessary tests, and more.
Improved outcomes. When AI and physicians work together, patients often experience better health outcomes, fewer complications, and reduced readmission rates.
Conclusion
So, it’s pretty much a given that AI is already having a tremendous effect on healthcare today.
From automating mundane tasks to assisting surgeons in the operating room, the applications are endless, with the benefits to match.
If there’s one thing that’s for sure, it’s this: these advances will only keep accelerating in the coming years.
Next steps
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