AI has come on leaps and bounds in the past couple of years, so much so that certain industries are fast becoming very reliant on it. With the ability to conduct basic tasks more efficiently and cheaper, AI is enabling businesses to divert their resources elsewhere in other areas of their operations.
Healthcare is one sector that is being revolutionised by AI. While providers remain cautious about rolling out solutions too quickly, AI is already being used across multiple areas of patient care.
Here, we explore six ways that AI is delivering for patients and practitioners.
- Personalised cancer treatment
Lung cancer is one of the most common causes of cancer deaths. However, patients with certain genetic features may benefit from targeted drug treatments that could reduce that figure, and that is where AI is helping. By working out which specific drug combinations are likely to benefit a patient with lung cancer AI is predicting how sensitive tumour cells are to certain drugs, and then how the patients will respond to certain combinations.
- Cancer detection
Regarding cancer, AI is also being used to detect diseases in their early stages more accurately. Research from the American Cancer Society shows that a high proportion of breast cancer screenings show incorrect results. AI is addressing this by enabling the review and translation of mammograms 30 times faster with what is claimed to be 99% accuracy, reducing the need for unnecessary biopsies.
- Reading images faster and more accurately
AI is also being used to support with image segmentation in radiology. This is giving radiologists the ability to see higher-level images, with AI essentially acting as a second set of eyes and serving as an assistant to the decision-making processes. In doing so, it is steering radiologists towards areas of the findings they may have initially disregarded.
- Directing physicians during procedures
AI-based workflow automation and decision support is helping interventional physicians perform minimally unintrusive procedures on patients with conditions such as heart disease. This is especially helpful in predicting strokes before they occur, with cloud-based AI helping analyse images to detect large vessel occlusion – a key factor behind for many strokes.
- Virtual assistants and AI chatbots
AI chatbots will be common to most consumers these days, with many large companies investing in this area of AI as part of their customer service strategy.
Healthcare is adopting a similar approach with systems such as Ada being used by patients to identify symptoms and recommend further actions in community and primary care settings, with the chatbots also being integrated into wearable devices.
These devices are also being utilised to help patients stick to their medication plans, with proactive communication now employed by top providers.
- Training
The healthcare sector is also using AI to draw instantly on large databases of training scenarios, and then respond to questions from a trainee in a much faster and more detailed way in comparison to a human trainer. The technology is also allowing medical trainees to conduct training anywhere; with the technology embedded on a smartphone or laptop.
Conclusion
These examples are just the beginning of how AI is changing the healthcare industry forever. The providers that are embracing the technology are able to offer stand-out patient outcomes, reduced admin for practitioners and better service across the entire customer journey.
Get in touch to find out how we can support healthcare providers with their communication.
