5 Ways In Which Artificial Intelligence Will Revolutionise Healthcare

Artificial Intelligence is impacting healthcare in the same way that OBD impacted automobiles a few decades ago. With the combination of data and machine learning, AI is moving healthcare to a much more automated, efficient, interactive, and intelligent state. But how will AI impact the future of Healthcare? Read to find out..

Improved Medical Diagnostics

The most significant way Artificial Intelligence has transformed healthcare is through data analysis and management. AI can store, connect, and skim through patient data to identify medical problems and diagnose them through highly accurate clinical decisions. With machine learning algorithms, one can recognize recurring patterns across heaps of data and warn patients of potential health complications based on reference groups. This is extremely helpful in preventive healthcare when it comes to diseases such as cancer, where early diagnosis can result in complete cure. On the other hand, a late or wrong diagnosis can have fatal results.

Virtual Health Assistants

Virtual Healthcare Assistants (VHA) are your own personal doctors to help you monitor and maintain your health on a daily basis – anytime, anywhere! These AI-driven applications are programmed to not only check and diagnose health problems but also to remind you of prescribed medications and warn you about possible health problems. Virtual Assistants use a vast data network to identify symptoms and Natural Language Generation to provide a fluid engagement experience for the patients.

Reduced Costs

Experts say that Artificial Intelligence has the potential to reduce treatment cost by up to 50%. But here’s where it gets even more interesting – despite the significant cost reductions, AI would also improve outcomes by up to 40%. While AI can help doctors and healthcare institutions manage and optimize resources better, it can also deliver better quality healthcare services.

Drug creation

Traditional pharmaceutical research is time consuming and expensive. Developing a single drug can take up to 15 years with an average price tag of 2.5 billion dollars (Source: IBM). Artificial Intelligence allows researchers to test millions of chemical compounds without even making them. This means not only can researchers save time and effort but also cut down the huge costs traditionally incurred in the tedious and time-consuming drug development and testing process.

Engaging Interactions

Healthcare bots have evolved significantly over the last few years to mimic human conversations. Patients can type their queries in a chat window and expect bots to answer promptly with real-time solutions and lightning fast responses. With recent advancements, healthcare bots can interact with humans empathetically and with the introduction of image recognition, these applications can now recognize photos and hand written text. Healthcare bots can answer a wide range of health-related queries and even guide patients by providing assistance on medications and the recommended doses.

(Compiled by Shefali Bhatia for BW Businessworld)