How Artificial Intelligence will Usher in a New Era in Healthcare

Over the next few years, we can certainly expect AI, machine learning, and other cognitive technologies to come of age and influence industries across the board. A report by Gartner suggests that in the past four years, there has been a 270 per cent growth in the number of companies implementing AI. Another IDC report predicts that the worldwide spending on cognitive and Artificial Intelligence systems will reach $77.6B by 2022.

Healthcare is one sector that can expect to benefit immensely from the growing popularity of AI. From hospital care to clinical research, patient diagnosis to consultation, drug development and insurance, AI applications are revolutionizing how the health care sector works to optimize spending and improve patient outcomes.

Here are some important ways in which AI can help transform healthcare:

Bridging the Demand-Supply Gap

AI can help significantly bridge the demand-supply gap with respect to trained medical professionals. For instance, developed economies such as the US, Japan, and Europe have a significant ageing population, which means they need greater medical care. Yet, the supply of trained service providers - doctors/nurses/etc. is not scaling fast enough to address this growth in healthcare needs. Over time, this problem is only set to amplify.

On the other side of the globe, countries such as India too grapple with a severe mismatch when it comes to the ratio of doctors versus patients. There are also geographical challenges such as the non-availability of doctors in remote or far-flung areas.

In both these cases, AI can be a lifesaver since it not only helps improve the overall productivity and efficiency of the system; but can automate some very specific tasks such as diagnosis and support. In the case of minor illnesses such as common cold, the diagnosis can potentially be completely automated, with a prescription delivered even without the intervention of a human doctor or via remote monitoring. AI can also bring about automation in areas such as medical testing and interpretation of reports (especially in radiology). This can help free up time from doctors and help speed up the consultation process.

In addition, AI robots can add significant value to end of life care especially in the case of degenerative diseases. By assisting patients in their day to day loves, AI can help them remain independent for longer periods. As a result, it can help ease the pressure on hospitals as well as assisted living facilities.

Amplifying Human Capabilities and Automation

AI enhances healthcare professionals’ ability to understand non-obvious patterns and diagnose more accurately. AI can help improve diagnosis as well as prescriptions.

Robotic process automation and automation of repetitive manual rule-based tasks have found several use cases across industries such as retail and manufacturing, and healthcare is no exception. In healthcare, we can expect to see automation in areas such as hospital appointment bookings, medical tests, prescription generation, etc.

However, to be a consummate Artificial Intelligence professional, one also requires knowledge of allied areas such as statistics, mathematics, and NLP. In addition, it requires a certain problem-solving mindset and communication skills to help navigate complex business issues. Also, to make the learning stick, it might make sense to opt for a blended learning approach – with a mix of online self-learning and interactive, immersive sessions.

For instance, IBM’s Watson for Health can store humungous amounts of medical information to help enable treatment and response exponentially faster than any human. Google’s DeepMind Health is using a combination of machine learning and neuroscience to build neural networks that can mimic the human brain.

Similarly, predictive analytics can help foresee future issues and take better decisions about the optimum line of treatment.

Impact on Jobs in AI/ Healthcare

While AI adoption often creates a certain hysteria around job loss, the truth is much more nuanced.

The AI revolution is set to benefit the healthcare industry in the long run. While Gartner predicts that AI will lead to 1.8 million job losses by 2020, it will also likely result in 2.3 million new positions related to analytics, management, or augmented decision-making. Healthcare is likely to emerge as a beneficiary of this trend. As per a study by Accenture Research on future workforce trends, employment in healthcare will increase by 15 per cent between 2018-2022.

This creates a plethora of opportunities for trained AI professionals in healthcare. However, for aspirants to take advantage of the same, they need to invest in the right skill sets. Doing a couple of MOOCs courses isn’t enough. A well-rounded grasp of AI basics such as data science, machine learning, deep learning, Python etc. is a good first step.

However, to be a consummate AI professional, one also requires knowledge of allied areas such as statistics, mathematics, and NLP. In addition, it requires a certain problem-solving mindset and communication skills to help navigate complex business issues. Also, to make the learning stick, it might make sense to opt for a blended learning approach – with a mix of online self-learning and interactive, immersive sessions.

By Kashyap Dalal, Co-founder and Chief Business Officer, Simplilearn