Abhigya Mahajan
Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized how we live, work, and communicate with one another. The healthcare sector is one of the biggest promising application areas for artificial intelligence. It has a huge potential for improving the quality of care and reducing healthcare costs, and it is already being deployed in numerous ways within the healthcare sector.
The ability to process vast amounts of data fast and accurately is one of the key benefits of AI in healthcare. When treating diseases, this can help to diagnose them and develop treatment plans. An enormous amount of medical data can, for instance, be analyzed by machine learning algorithms to detect trends and anticipate results that allow healthcare providers to make more informed decisions. It has a significant impact on the development of personalized medicine as well. AI can be used to assist healthcare professionals in developing individualized treatment plans which adapt to the individual’s special needs, based on analysis of his or her biological characteristics and further relevant data. Patients who are given more efficient and effective treatments can benefit from improved results and lower costs. The use of AI to enable more accurate and timely diagnosis is also being used to improve patient outcomes. These algorithms can detect subtle patterns that may be overlooked by human radiologists in the analysis of medical images such as X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans. This may result in a more timely and precise diagnosis, which could prove vital for the treatment of severe diseases.Improving the patient’s involvement and adherence to treatment plans is another way of using AI in healthcare. Personalized health information and reminders about medications, appointments, etc. of important aspects of the patient’s care can be provided by chatbots and Virtual Assistants. This can lead to better outcomes and improved patient satisfaction, by encouraging patients to remain engaged and informed.
The global expenditure on artificial intelligence for health is expected to reach $34 billion in 2025, according to Tractica’s report. This amounts to a significant increase from the estimated healthcare spending of $2.1 billion in 2018 on AI. The report estimates that a significant proportion of this expenditure will be devoted to developing and implementing AI tools for medical imaging, diagnosis and treatment planning.
Concerns about the implications of AI for patient privacy and potential bias in algorithms to make decisions on patients also exist, even though it has many benefits concerning health care. Careful consideration of these issues, and the development of policies and regulations to ensure that AI is applied with care and compassion, will be important for healthcare providers and policymakers. The potential for a patient’s privacy to be violated is one of the biggest issues in healthcare. With more and more healthcare professionals relying on these algorithms for the processing and analysis of patient data, there’s a risk that they could leak or misuse this information. Sensitive patient data, such as identity theft, financial fraud, or other significant consequences could be affected if an AI algorithm has been attacked or breached. The potential for bias in algorithms making decisions is also a concern. To make forecasts and decisions, these algorithms are relying on vast amounts of data. But it could lead to discrimination or unequal results if these data are biased or not complete. It may lead to incorrect diagnoses and treatment for patients from other groups if an algorithm is trained on data only relating to a specific racial or socioeconomic group. Consideration should be given to ensuring that AI is used with responsibility and integrity by healthcare professionals and policymakers to tackle these concerns. This includes the implementation of robust security measures to protect patient information from harm and ensuring that algorithms are transparent and understandable by addressing potential biases in data used for training the algorithms. Patient participation in the development and implementation of AI in healthcare is one way to deal with these concerns. Health professionals can help strengthen patient’s confidence in AI by having discussions with them about its use and risks as well as making sure they have a say in how their data are handled. This could cover requirements for transparency and explanation of these algorithms, and guidelines on the collection, application, and sharing of patient data.
AI can improve the quality of care, reduce costs and allow personalized medicine to change how healthcare is delivered. Despite the need to address these problems, the future of AI in health care is bright although it will undoubtedly have a huge impact over the coming years on how we are delivering and receiving healthcare.
