Future of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: Bright or Dark?
When it comes to our future, we always hope to have a bright one. Why don’t we think it might be darker than today, especially about the Future of Artificial Intelligence? Let me tell you. We have a constant struggle behind the setting of this mindset. We went through countless milestones to get the technology we have today. AI technology is one of the latest technological points in this struggle. According to research in 2021, “Artificial Intelligence supports physicians in making a diagnosis, foreseeing the spread of diseases, and customizing treatment paths.” Consider this article a complete guide on the Future of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
First of all, we should understand what AI is. AI is any digital computing machine that can perform tasks generally associated with intelligent beings. Consider the following 3 points to clear this concept in a better way.
· An intelligent body devised by humans.
· Capable of working intelligently.
· Capable of thinking and reasoning.
Future of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
My curious fellows, the key objective of the Healthcare field has always been to improve patients’ lives. Besides, the healthcare sector is rich in data and stats, so AI suits it. According to a survey published in 2023, the global market size for artificial intelligence from 2021 to 2030 will increase from 11 billion USD to more than 188 billion USD. Countless benefits are expected in the Healthcare industry with the help of Artificial Intelligence. Let us have a short-eye view of some of these.
1. Administrative Tasks
AI systems assist us with daily administrative tasks to decrease errors and maximize productivity. These systems help us structure patient data to make it easier for doctors to read. According to a report in 2020, with the use of AI in the future, doctors will be able to spend more than 17% of their time on patients.
2. AI in Telemedicine
In non-emergency circumstances, patients can reach out to a hospital’s AI system to analyze their symptoms and signs and assess if there’s a need for medical attention. This minimizes the workload of the medical team by bringing only urgent cases to them.
3. Assistance in Diagnosis
With the help of computer-assisted neural networks, AI can now efficiently read MRI scans to check for tumors and other lethal growths. This is done at a faster pace than radiologists can. The margin of error is usually close to zero. In 2021, 42% of health companies used AI-based technologies in disease diagnosis. Consider PathAI, which makes pathologists able to make exact diagnoses. It reduces errors during cancer diagnosis and gives out many new techniques for medical treatment. With its help, most patients can be attended to or be cured at a stage where it saves numerous lives.
4. Robotic Assistance
Robotic surgeries have a small margin of error, and can consistently perform surgeries 24/7 without feeling tired. Since they operate with such a high level of accuracy, they are less harmful than conventional methods. It potentially decreases the time patients have to spend in the hospital for recovery.
5. Monitoring of Vital Stats
One’s health condition is a continuing process and depends on the varying stages of vital statistics. Because vital signs and stats have the potential to foresee health variations, Artificial Intelligence has multiple life-saving applications here.
6. Early Diagnosis of Fatal Blood Diseases
In the diagnosis of blood-related fatal diseases at an early stage, Artificial Intelligence is immensely important. Through the use of AI-boosted microscopes, medical professionals are now capable of scanning harmful elements and bacteria in blood samples. It is being done much faster speed as compared to that manual scanning. In a recent experiment by scientists, AI-supported machines identified these bacteria in the blood and predicted their presence in the new samples. The accuracy of these machines was 95%, which reduced the mortality rate.
7. Customer Service Chatbots
Chatbots have been developed by experts using modern technologies like NLP. These allow the patients to raise their inquiries about their appointments, bill payments, etc. These have the ability to communicate with the patients according to their sickness and symptoms. It reduces the workload on the medical team. This healthcare solution engages patients and gives them unconventional treatment with better outcomes.
8. Virtual Health Assistants
Virtual health assistants perform several duties. Responding to routine patients via calls and emails, managing medical information of the patients and security of sensitive data, preparing appointments with doctors and clinical appointment reminders to the patients, etc. A recent study shows that 44% of patients will continue to be taken care of by virtual health assistants in the future.
9. Reduction of Dosage Errors
A single extra dose or shortage of a drug can have disastrous effects on a patient’s body. That’s why the patient must take the right drug amount as prescribed. Or else there may be serious consequences. With the help of Artificial Intelligence, the healthcare department will be able to reduce the margin of medication errors.
10. Fraud Detection
While several patients are searching for effective medical services that save cost, there is also an exponential rise in fraud cases. This has made most medical organizations and patients suffer huge damage. With the help of AI-based solutions, these fraud attempts have been reduced massively as these tools allow elaborate navigation through the processes and detect fraud. According to a research report in 2020, 58% of companies use AI-supported fraud detectors in their systems.
Conclusion
It is an expected fact that the Future of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare is extremely bright. AI applications are being used in a wide range of tasks in healthcare departments. The main reason behind this tremendous use of artificial intelligence is its ability to think and reason. According to a survey in 2021, 64% of clinicians believed they would make their decisions using Artificial intelligence in the future. I hope this article opened your eyes to the role of AI in healthcare. Stay connected.
