A closer look at AI in Healthcare
Despite its lack of general familiarity, artificial intelligence is a technology that is revolutionizing every aspect of life. It’s a versatile tool that allows individuals to rethink how they integrate data, evaluate it, and apply the insights to make better decisions. Artificial Intelligence is already changing the world and posing significant societal, economic, and governance issues. The medical industry however, seems to have found many uses for Artificial intelligence. While it is important to remember the potential harms of artificial intelligence, we also need to remember that it can have many tangible benefits in people’s lives.
What are some of the applications of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare?
Firstly, Artificial Intelligence can be used for a more accurate cancer diagnosis. PathAI from Cambridge, Massachusetts is working on machine learning technologies to help pathologists make better diagnosis. Reduced cancer diagnostic mistake and the development of technologies for personalised medical treatment are two of the company’s current priorities. Considering that as many as 10 million people die of cancer each year, it is safe to say this revolutionary advancement.
One other company that is using Artificial Intelligence to better healthcare services is Babylon located in Austin, Texas. Babylon Health is on a mission to reengineer healthcare by moving the focus from just caring for the sick to preventing illness in the first place, resulting in improved health and lower healthcare costs. The platform includes an AI engine developed by experienced doctors and expert deep-learning scientists that runs an interactive symptom checker, which uses known symptoms and risk factors to deliver the most accurate and up-to-date medical information available. The Babylon Health platform also includes a health monitoring system to assist users in staying healthy for extended periods of time.
One other great application of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare can be seen in Spring Health from New York. Employers can utilise Spring Health’s robust mental health benefit solutions to provide their employees with the services they need to keep their mental health in control. The system collects a full dataset from each individual and compares it to hundreds of thousands of other data points. It is clinically verified.
Last but not least, the folks over at Intuitive in San Francisco, California have utilised Artificial Intelligence in surgery. The da Vinci platforms from Intuitive have paved the way for robotic surgery. The surgical devices, which were the first robotic surgery assistants to be authorized by the FDA over 18 years ago, include cameras, robotic arms, and surgical instruments to aid in minimally invasive treatments. The da Vinci technology is continually collecting data and providing surgeons with analytics to help them better future surgery. Da Vinci has aided in almost five million procedures thus far.
How else can Artificial Intelligence help healthcare?
So far, we have only explored ways in which Artificial Intelligence can be used in treatment and diagnosis. However, it can also be used to train the next generation of healthcare workers. In a manner that basic computer-driven algorithms cannot, Artificial Intelligence allows individuals in training to go through realistic scenarios and simulations. Because of the emergence of natural speech and the capacity of an AI machine to rapidly draw from a massive library of scenarios, a trainee’s answer to questions, decisions, or recommendations can challenge in ways that a person cannot. Furthermore, the training program may learn from the trainee’s prior replies, allowing the challenges to be regularly changed to fit their learning needs.