AI-la! AI in Healthcare!

There’s a scene in the movie ‘3 Idiots’ where the professor asks Rancho, “What is a machine?”

“A machine is anything that reduces human effort”, he answers.

But the professor was more keen on the definition of a machine and is more satisfied with a complicated and more bookish answer.

Understanding AI in healthcare is in the same situation today. Everyone wants bookish answers.

But, instead of adding to the complexity, I’m going to break it down, so we can stop fearing it and start embracing it.

Artificial Intelligence in healthcare, is simplifying the lives of patients, doctors, diagnostic labs and hospital administrators.

AI in healthcare is working from end to end of the care spectrum

Right from Risk Evaluation
Risk Prevention
Screening and Diagnostics
Health Information collection
Disease Determination
Therapy selection and development
Dosage
Monitoring
to
Follow Up and more…

Here are a few things AI is already doing.

1. Risk Evaluation

I was in a medical emergency once and the first to attend us was an intern doctor. I was in one of the fancy hospitals in Mumbai and I can say for sure that the attending doctor’s experience, and presence of mind was not enough to understand, and act immediately with the right care. He did have to go to his senior which wasted precious time.

But now with AI, once can diagnose a situation at a faster rate than most medical professionals and recommend the right path of action.

I’m not taking away the credibility of the humans, but human and AI makes it a powerful force.

2. Therapy selection and development

During COVID-19, we realized that drug discovery that would normally take years was needed in months, if not weeks. AI is speeding up this process by helping design the most efficacious drugs while predicting and preventing any side effects. AI’s ability to process massive amounts of data and generate new insights would allow it to create entirely new molecules not discovered that could be used to save lives and save the world.

3. Health Information collection

I recently read about a software that doctors could use to screen patients online. During questioning the patient, it could understand what the patient was saying and seeing if any vital information was being missed out. It would then prompt the doctor to get that missing piece also. This will enhance the quality of the appointment.

In small ways and big, the future is already here.

AI, machine learning and big data are being used to revolutionise healthcare.

What are the exciting new stuff in AI you’ve read about?