6 Opportunities Created By AI In Healthcare

Think about one of the most significant events that have happened in the last two years. What event do you think of? A majority of people in the world would probably say the Covid pandemic was the most influential. Many individuals, companies and industries were impacted hard from the repercussions of Covid, yet the most affected was the healthcare industry. For instance, the lost revenue for America’s healthcare system was “$50.7 billion per month” (Kaye). The Covid pandemic put a spotlight onto our healthcare system as well as all of the weaknesses it contains. From the constant increase in demand and cost of service to struggling to meet the needs of patients, hospitals and its workers need something to help take part of the burden off them. With the use of AI technology, the healthcare industry can become more productive and efficient when it comes to the day-to-day lives of doctors, benefiting patients’ needs and creating disease focused AI technology. Not only can AI transform our healthcare system into a sustainable, organized industry, yet this can also be a great example of how AI could be implemented into other industries in the future.

The healthcare industry is constantly providing medical services, manufacturing medical equipment and providing healthcare to patients. However, since the Covid-19 pandemic has occurred, there has been a desperate need for healthcare workers; these workers are constantly in intense and high demanding situations. Healthcare workers have many roles during their day-to-day jobs, from administrative work to working with patients. Whether you know it or not, the tasks that take up the most time out of the day is the administrative work: this includes recordkeeping, managing patients’ health information and finances. These types of painstaking jobs lead to an increase of burnout amongst practitioners and nurses, which is not ideal due to the demand of their services being so high. An article called “Transforming healthcare with AI: The impact on the workforce and organizations” written by Angela Spatharou talks about the evolution of the healthcare system due to AI. Angela Spatharou leads the McKinsey Healthcare Systems and Services Practice in Spain and spent four years in North American leading McKinsey’s special-needs populations. Spatharo wrote, “AI can help remove or minimize time spent on routine, administrative tasks, which can take up to 70  percent of a healthcare practitioner’s time” (Spatharou). Chatbots can act as personal assistants in which they can schedule medical appointments as well as collect patient data. Not only are these AI technologies doing administrative work more accurately, it also frees up time for practitioners.

With this free time, practitioners can be able to give more attention and energy towards their patients, which is one of the biggest goals in the healthcare system. Spatharou also states that “By 2050, one in four people in Europe and North America will be over the age of 65 – this means the health systems will have to deal with more patients with complex needs” (Spatharou). If AI takes on the organizational and administrative tasks, then nurses will be able to give one hundred percent of their attention to these complex needs of patients. By asking simple questions about the patient, chatbots can easily help practitioners facilitate patient admission in the medical system. Also, AI technologies and chatbots can help patients outside the hospital. Healthcare AI chatbots can create a sense of anonymity and personalization (Hajjar).  Many health related issues are very sensitive for people. Chatbots can not create feelings or any judgements towards people, which could create a trustworthy environment for patients. AI can also create real time interactions for numerous users at a time (Hajjar). A productive, less intense and anonymous healthcare system can be produced by the implementation of AI technology. With new technology for patients and practitioners, more time can be used to benefit patients in and out of hospitals. Patients have relied on nurses to diagnose diseases and understand every symptom, yet these needs can now be met by AI.

A huge portion of AI technology is used to understand and analyze diseases, whether it’s an online app diagnosing a common cold or recognizing a serious case of cancer. Trained healthcare chatbots are knowledgeable in disease symptoms, diagnostics and available treatments. For easy accessible apps, the knowledge is much more broad. However, in “AI literature in healthcare, the research mainly concentrates around a few disease types: cancer, nervous system disease and cardiovascular disease” (Jiang). Within these different disease types, AI can diagnose, analyze clinical images, “restore the control of movement in patients” and “provide automated, editable ventricle segmentations” (Jiang). These types of AI are specifically designed to aid in complex disease studies. Apps and AI allow for faster and more precise diagnoses than ever before. Since AI technology is starting to take the role of the information know-it-alls, that leaves more time for new innovations and discoveries. This can also help bring new skills into this sector by “shifting the focus away from memorizing facts and moving to innovation, entrepreneurship, continuous learning, and multidisciplinary working” (Spatharou). With AI technologies that can recognize and analyze complex information in addition to new discoveries, our healthcare industry can prosper into an innovative, productive system.

AI technologies and chatbots are being used for an array of tasks. From administrative work to diagnosing diseases, AI is helping to create an effective, beneficial healthcare system for everyone. “Top 6 Use Cases & Examples of Chatbots In Healthcare” witten by Alamira Jouman Hajjar highlights the specific tasks AI helps with and multiple examples. Alamira Hajjar has a masters degree in biomedical engineering and uses her knowledge in research of AI algorithms in the biomedical field. She talks about two main medical information providers called Ada and Healthily. Ada is one of the biggest apps that assess symptoms of the users in which it provides “correct disease suggestions earlier than the time of clinical diagnosis 56% of the time” (Hajjan). Also, Ada uses its AI database to indicate certain symptoms, which is what another similar free app does called Healthily. Healthily is a user-friendly symptom checker available on a variety of devices and online browsers (Hajjan). It also provides sources for medical providers, whether one needs a pharmacy, test centers or a doctors office. One final example talked about by Hajjan is called Woebot. Woebot “provides CBT, mindfulness and Dialectical Behavior Therapy” (Hajjan). This app is a form of therapy for anyone, anywhere, which is redefining how health services are being given. From physical health to mental health, chatbots are giving us reliable sources to improve daily health. By highlighting certain examples of AI technologies used in the healthcare system, we can fully understand how diverse AI can truly be in the healthcare industry. However, not everything is always perfect, which includes AI systems.

Throughout all of the positive and helpful things that AI can provide our healthcare industry, there are always some sort of drawbacks. Implementing new technology into multiple systems across the US is time consuming and challenging. Changes in well developed systems can be hard to adapt to, however AI systems are worth the challenge. AI technologies need to be trained about all the information they need to know. For example, Ada needs to know a vast variety of diseases, the symptoms and the treatments of those diseases. Training can be extensive and time consuming. Also, AI needs constant surveillance (Drexel University). Information Science professor, Christopher C. Yang states, “No matter the system, there is always some portion of missing data. In the case with prescriptions, some information regarding certain populations and reactions to treatments may be absent. This occurrence can lead to issues with diagnosing and treating patients belonging to certain demographics” (Drexel University). Even with human surveillance, AI technologies are susceptible to inaccuracies and security risks. However, humans also make mistakes, which is also something to think about. Despite the setbacks talked about in this paragraph about AI in healthcare, the productive and enriching healthcare system it can create outweighs the negatives.

Our society is becoming more technologically advanced and with these developments it can rebuild the healthcare system. There are so many internal issues hospitals and its workers have been facing for years, however AI technologies have helped relieve some of these problems. Practitioners and patients are mutually gaining from the implementation of AI into the healthcare system because it takes on many different time consuming tasks. Also, AI is extremely productive and accurate when it comes to analyzing disease and health data. The healthcare industry has taken advantage of the cheap, productive AI technologies to allow human interactions and new innovations to prosper. This industry has started to put AI into use, but it is just one example of how impactful AI can be in our modern day society.