Artificial Intelligence or AI is transforming all the industries globally, and the same applies to healthcare as well. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how AI is to evolve the healthcare business if you are an investor or someone working in the healthcare field. Moreover, AI is often blamed for dumping out many employees’ job opportunities shortly, but is that really so?
AI in healthcare is already doing wonders in the industry. The industry’s top players are already investing in AI, big data, and other AI-related technologies to bring the best results. The ability of the AI algorithm to find patterns is the most significant feature it offers to humans. And with this ability, an AI can recognize and predict symptoms and suggest diagnosis even before the patient shows the disease’s initial signs. And, AI streamlines the entire backend process for better productivity and efficiency. It is how artificial intelligence in healthcare is transforming the industry.
How AI is Currently Being Used in Healthcare
Radiology
In radiology practice, physicians manually assess the medical images and reports to detect the disease in a patient. With AI up for the task, the time required for doing the same job decreases multi-fold and makes the entire process hassle-free for both the patient and the physician. AI applications in healthcare can significantly improve patient care as it optimizes many workflows saving time and resources, which can then be used for caring for the patients. On the other hand, AI also generates many useful data throughout the process, which was not available earlier.
Personal Health Care Assistant
Doctors spend almost 49% of their time on administrative tasks. With AI as a personal health care assistant, it can automate the administrative burden of medical record navigation, medical transcription and medical information search from the physicians. Moreover, virtual nursing assistants can help the doctor, and the patient’s healthcare experience be hassle-free. Virtual assistants with voice recognition and EHR integrations can replace an actual person to study health history and interact with patients. This way, healthcare workers can invest more time with patients with severe conditions and deliver better care for the needed.
Drug Discovery
AI and the healthcare industry work together to develop drugs significantly faster than the traditional manual methods that take years. With the pandemic on the go, we have to embrace everything we have to find a cure for the virus. And artificial intelligence is one of the promising ways to lead to a vaccine discovery faster and more efficient for another pandemic in the near future. Machine learning algorithms can design novel compounds that may lead to vaccine discovery after proper tests and clinical trials. Over the years, AI has the power to take over the development of a drug for any disease with maximum efficiency and functionality.
Proactive Healthcare
The traditional healthcare practice is called reactive as the physician chooses the medicine based on the symptoms. Artificial intelligence in healthcare helps you get beyond this limit and enables doctors to follow proactive healthcare. The machine learning algorithm can analyze and predict the symptoms even before the patient shows the first signs. AI can help predict diseases with a genetic history in the patient’s family, like Diabetes. Most times, the patients will be unaware of the issue, but the AI can make a difference in supporting their life.
Electronic Data Storage
With different health monitoring systems already on the market, like Apple Fitbit, and Garmin, we can readily track the health conditions if they are using it. When this data is integrated with a machine learning algorithm, healthcare workers can get great insights into a patient’s physical activities and help them care for the patient much better. Also, AI demands the storage of these clinical data for a more extended period as it needs all the data it can. Hence, when you integrate AI into the healthcare workflow, you also get a well-maintained dataset to help you in the future for historical analysis and other studies.
Impact on Health Workforce
Artificial intelligence is always associated with job loss for all sectors as AI is said to take control of most repetitive tasks, which will cost many employees their job. However, that is not the case. AI in the medical field can improve the experience of your patients and doctors. AI can ease up many processes that healthcare workers have to invest so much time, giving better care to the patients. It drastically improves the interaction between the doctor and patient as well. But the demand for medical practitioners will never go down as there is already a practical demand for physicians worldwide. And over time, this demand will further increase helping more people find a job in the healthcare sector irrespective of whether AI is integrated into the system.
Outlook and Scope
Artificial intelligence in medicine is gathering more and more applications in the industry. Therefore, the sooner you start incorporating this incredible technology into your firm, the easier it will be for you to manage and deliver outstanding results to the patients and your medical staff. Data privacy and security and big data management are the only factors that stop firms from transforming their business models. However, it is to change with the accelerating development in AI and AI-related technologies that will quickly overcome contemporary issues. AI will then evolve to be the frontend and the backend of a healthcare facility that thrives on optimizing the system and making the overall experience a memorable and cost-effective one. Reach out to us at sales@ndz.co for further enquiries.