The Role of AI in Healthcare: Use Cases and Benefits

The University of Cambridge developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool that is capable of predicting the onset of Alzheimer’s in patients with early signs of dementia, with more than 80% accuracy.

So did the researchers from Boston University and University of California, San Francisco as well. What does this all signify?

Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing healthcare in more ways than we could imagine. From detecting Alzheimer’s almost a decade away, to AI-powered robots assisting humans in performing complex surgeries, AI is no longer a buzzword! It is happening and is playing a vital role in the healthcare ecosystem.

The future of healthcare is no longer just about healthcare professionals—it’s also about supercomputers, algorithms, automation, and AI, redefining the way diagnosis, treatment and care are imparted to the patients.

But how does AI fit into healthcare? What is its role, real-time applications and benefits? Let’s delve deep in.

What Exactly Is AI in Healthcare?

Machine learning algorithms, deep learning, natural language processing (NLP), and other related technologies can help evaluate stacks of medical data and generate a clear idea towards assisting in diagnosis, suggesting better treatment procedures and improving overall patient outcome.

Keep in mind that AI is not here to replace doctors but to assist them, enhancing their decision making capability, ensuring more accuracy that is data-driven.

What Are the Benefits of AI in Healthcare?

AI is not just a fancy tech buzzword—it’s actively improving healthcare in multiple ways. Here’s why AI is a game-changer:

1. Early Disease Detection and Diagnosis: AI can analyze medical reports like blood tests, and genetic data to identify diseases earlier and better than conventional methods. For e.g. there are AI tools that can identify cancer in radiology scans with impressive accuracy, at times spotting tumors before a radiologist catches it.
2. Enhancing Efficiency: Hospitals and clinics generate terabytes of data on a daily basis. AI can help in streamlining administrative tasks and resource allocation, thereby helping hospitals run more efficiently.
3. Custom Treatment Plans: Every patient is unique, and AI ensures every patient is treated accordingly. By analyzing every byte of patient data, AI suggests custom treatment options for the particular patient, thereby improving recovery rates and mitigating side effects.
4. Assisting in Drug Discovery: Developing new drugs can be expensive, and time- as well as resource- consuming. AI speeds up drug discovery by assessing millions of chemical data in a fraction of the time, compared to traditional methods, leading to faster and more effective treatments.
5. Virtual Health Assistants: Chatbots and virtual assistants are taking away the burden of administrative tasks from healthcare professionals by responding to common patient queries, scheduling appointments, and even reminding patients to take their medications.
6. Patient Monitoring through Wearable Devices: Wearables like smartwatches and fitness trackers monitor heart rate, oxygen levels, and even irregularities that could indicate serious conditions. AI processes this real-time data and alerts users or doctors if something seems off.

What Are the Common Use Cases of AI in Healthcare?

AI is transforming the healthcare sector as we speak. Here are a few real-time applications of AI:

1. Identifying Diseases before Symptoms Appear: AI models are trained to analyze MRI and CT scans and can detect tumors, fractures, and neurological disorders with precision. Google’s DeepMind AI can identify over 50 eye diseases from routine eye scans, at times even better than doctors.
2. Predicting Cardiac Issues: AI algorithms are being deployed in physical devices to predict the likelihood of heart attacks and strokes by analyzing ECGs, cholesterol levels, and other risk elements in real time. AI-powered stethoscopes are used to detect heart murmurs that doctors might fail to hear.
3. Robotic Surgeries: AI-assisted robotic surgery enables objective data-driven decision-making like the Da Vinci Surgical System that can handle minimally invasive procedures with extreme precision, minimizing recovery time and improving patient outcomes.
4. Mental Health: Chatbots and NLP Models like Woebot and Wysa use AI-powered Chatbots to provide live cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and emotional support, removing the stigma from mental health care and making it more accessible.
5. AI in Drug Discovery: Taking a recent incident, AI played a crucial role in accelerating the COVID-19 vaccine development. It relentlessly analyzed viral structures and simulated countless scenarios of drug interactions, significantly reducing the time otherwise needed for clinical trials.
6. Reducing Administrative Burden: One of the major advantages of AI is the automation of repetitive administrative tasks like patient record-keeping, billing, and scheduling, thereby granting healthcare professionals more time to focus on patient care rather than paperwork.

The Ethical and Challenges Side of AI in Healthcare

Of course, AI is pioneering a major healthcare revolution, but it comes with its own set of challenges:

1. Data Confidentiality: If something is online, it’s vulnerable. AI relies on vast amounts of sensitive patient data, which raises big concerns about data security and privacy breaches, which can happen anytime.
2. Bias in AI Models: Unlike human beings, AI doesn’t possess rational thinking and when they are trained on biased datasets, AI models can generate unfair treatment recommendations, especially for privileged groups.
3. Regulatory and Ethical Issues: In light of potential privacy/security threats, AI-driven healthcare decisions must comply with new ethical guidelines, medical regulations, and mandatory patient consent.
4. Human-in-the-Loop Factor: However advanced AI evolves to be, human empathy, experience, and judgment will always play a crucial role in patient care.

Why Partner with DeepKnit AI for AI Healthcare Solutions?

At DeepKnit AI, we believe in harnessing the power of AI for everyone. Just like how AI is revolutionizing healthcare, we intend to play a significant role in the transformation, while keeping patients at the center of innovation. Regardless of whether it’s predictive analytics, AI diagnoses, or workflow automation, we specialize in building cutting-edge AI solutions customized for healthcare practice.

AI in healthcare is no longer the future—it’s the present. The only question left to ask yourself is: Are you ready to be part of this new-age healthcare revolution?