5 Ways AI Is Changing The Healthcare Industry

By Apoorv Gehlot, Founder & Board Member at Matellio

 
 

5 Ways AI Is Changing The Healthcare Industry

 
The world today is changing at a rapid pace. What once was words of science fiction has now become the reality of the natural world. Similar is the case of AI. AI or artificial intelligence has wholly transformed the industrial sector. Whether it is education, fin-tech, e-commerce, or even con, AI has deeply impacted all the industries to their core.

Besides all the industries AI has been touching, the healthcare sector has been receiving paramount importance. Technical advancements in AI radically transformed the way doctors treated patients. According to Statista, healthcare AI market is expected to reach 28 billion dollars by the year 2025. With such exponential growth, AI is undoubtedly likely to bring some drastic changes in the healthcare industry.

 

How Is AI Transforming The Healthcare Industry?

 
AI has a significant impact on the healthcare industry; it is redefining healthcare and its core functions. Let’s look at five ways of how AI has changed the healthcare industry.

 

1. Digital Consultation

 
The introduction of AI in healthcare has enabled the patients to consult with doctors seamlessly. Although the concept of digital consultation is not new, there were significant limitations in those old consultation apps. New and advanced developments in AI solved many of those issues.

Firstly the advancements in deep learning, enabled the users to make more informed decisions. Instead of impulsively asking questions, these AI-driven systems learned from several real use cases to ask questions relevant to the patient’s health record.

Secondly, the advance natural learning process has made it easier to answer the patient’s query. By efficiently learning and understanding complicated sentences, it has significantly transformed the way machines used to answer the questions. Both of these technologies brought drastic changes in the healthcare industry.

 

2. Smart Diagnosis

 
Gone are those days when diagnosing the diseases was a tedious task. With the introduction of AI in healthcare, it has become a piece of cake. AI applications helped doctors to diagnose patients quickly and with greater accuracy. AI with advanced technologies helps to find out medical issues while eliminating errors. 

Also, the use of AI in cardiology and radiology departments have made it possible to detect severe issues at an early stage. For instance, AI-based applications have made it possible to detect cancer cells at an early stage and also provided ways to prevent it from growing. Similar is the case of the cardiology department. In short, AI has revolutionized the way doctors used to diagnose the diseases, and also reduced the errors while diagnosing.

 

3. Drug Discovery

 
Apart from efficient diagnosis, AI systems are also catering to the needs of medicine development. They are leveraging vast databases and critical information to identify new potential therapies. These advancements in medicine can be very beneficial to treat severe diseases like Ebola, Cancer, and much more. 

Apart from that, AI in medicine development could also help to discover drugs that could be beneficial in curing deadly diseases more effectively. It has the power to analyze subtle trends of medicine that can help scientists or researchers to track the drug development accurately. All in all, the introduction of AI in medicine would accelerate the process of drug discovery and can bring new hopes in the healthcare industry.

 

4. Robotic Assistance

 
AI in healthcare does not mean that robots will replace all the doctors. Instead, it merely means to integrate the robustness of robots with the converging skills of the surgeons. Recent developments in AI has led to the increased use of AI-driven robots, that efficiently mimic human work, obviously with fewer errors. So is the case with the healthcare sector. 

The use of robotics in healthcare could significantly improve efficiency and steadiness while treating patients. It can provide vital information on patient’s health and can also offer suggestions to help in the diagnosis. Moreover, AI can also assist in microsurgery to ensure faster recovery of patients. It can lend a helping hand to the surgeon, by providing them with the real data about the risk involved and necessary actions to be taken.

 

5. Virtual Follow-up System

 
Doctors are almost busy round the clock. And that becomes a significant problem for patients who need regular care and checkups. That’s where AI systems come to play. AI-driven chatbots help to solve that issue by providing continuous support to the patients requiring daily attention. The patients need to enter their problems, and within seconds they’ll receive an effective solution from the chatbots. 

Moreover, with advanced developments, the patients need not even to type there issues, the chatbots can seamlessly analyze handwritten texts and images. These AI-driven bots are also capable of diagnosing the patients and providing them with proper medication by addressing the symptoms. Above all, these AI systems can even address the patients as a human would do!

 

Future Outlook For AI

 
The future of AI in the healthcare segment is very bright and promising. Over the next few years, we’ll probably see more hybrid models that would aim to improve diagnosis, help in identifying risks and would also encourage medicine development. Also, these AI-driven systems would help healthcare centres to mitigate data risks while ensuring more operational efficiency and profound improvements in patient’s recovery. 

Although, there are still a lot of challenges in AI healthcare segment like patient’s comfort, training and expertise of AI systems, complying with government standards, and so on. But, if it overcomes all those issues, then it can drastically transform the future of the healthcare industry. All in all, AI-based systems have made small steps towards changing the healthcare industry, but still have a lot to achieve to make a significant impact on future healthcare.        

 
Bio: Apoorv Gehlot is Founder & Board Member at Matellio.

Related:

• How AI will transform healthcare (and can it fix the US healthcare system?)
• How to Become a Successful Healthcare Data Analyst
• Convolutional Neural Network for Breast Cancer Classification