Artificial Intelligence, or simply AI, is more than just driverless cars, robots, and Alexa. It’s a revolutionary technology with the potential to benefit a host of industries, especially healthcare. Did you know that the size of global AI in the healthcare market is expected to surpass almost $187.95 billion by 2030?
The impact of AI in healthcare management can be life-altering; whether it’s driving innovations in treatments, developing life-saving drugs, innovating surgeries, or managing data, AI is steadily making its entry into healthcare and hospital management.
How can AI facilitate changes in healthcare management?
AI applications are primarily focused on 3 areas, engagement, digitalization, and diagnostics.
- Robot doctors are humanlike droids as in sci-fi movies; these complex machines can carry out specific tasks. These smart machines are now flooding top-of-the-line healthcare facilities worldwide. Surgical robots can operate on patients with the precision of any highly-skilled surgeon. Intelligent robots are acting as transporting units; for instance, transport robots can navigate hospital pathways for delivering medical supplies quickly.
- AI algorithms are bringing about huge changes in the field of clinical diagnosis; they can diagnose diseases at lightning speed and often more accurately compared to doctors. Conditions like cancer can be treated better when it’s detected early. Melanoma, for instance, is hard to detect in the early stages, but AI algorithms can scan and examine biopsy images to detect such cancers much faster than doctors. As a result, delays in treatment and diagnostic errors are now becoming far less frequent.
- Precision medication is all about dispensing the right treatment according to a patient’s behavior. This is as important as the right diagnosis of a condition. However, it depends on interpreting huge volumes of data which includes information about a patient’s treatment history, lifestyle, hereditary traits, and restrictions. This is where machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence algorithms play a key role. AI-powered systems for managing data can organize large data volumes to derive meaningful predictions and conclusions. In hospitals where such data is usually stored in computers or file cabinets, AI systems browse through them and help doctors arrive at precision medications.
- Developing new drugs can take years, with countless failed attempts on the way. The costs are incredibly high, amounting to billions of dollars spent on medical research. Of the thousands of drugs, only a handful can be tested on humans. And from this lot, only one perhaps makes it to the pharmacy. This is why pharma giants like Pfizer are now collaborating with tech companies like IBM to leverage AI technology to develop drugs faster. Now, they are shifting to data-driven drug discovery instead of the conventional trial-and-error approach.
- Personal Health Assistants are coming up thanks to AI applications in healthcare management. Advanced AI technology along with the Internet of Things (IoT) produces consumer-oriented products designed to promote health. Look at the number of wearables, mobile fitness, and health apps, and discrete monitors collecting data and checking our vitals 24×7! These devices make recommendations based on data. The idea is to correct irregularities and this data is used by medical professionals as medical reports.
AI is very much here to stay. While AI can never replace doctors, it will continue to empower machines to facilitate healthcare management. The end goal is to achieve low-cost but more efficient healthcare solutions. The speed with which AI and ML are being adopted by the healthcare industry proves it has become indispensable for the seamless functioning of healthcare facilities
