AI in Healthcare and its Impact in 2022

The potential of machine learning for healthcare can offer data-driven clinical decision support or CDS to the hospital staff and physicians by creating a new pathway for revenue generation. Deep learning, is a subset of AI which is designed to articulate and identify the patterns, and algorithms of data to ensure automated insights of patient conditions to providers and healthcare members. 

2021 experienced a wave of innovation and it was unprecedented and accelerated by the pandemic-driven digitization. The healthcare sector witnessed a significant transformation with the integration of technology and the easier adoption of AI in healthcare. One of the most noteworthy development was the COVID-19 vaccines and the implementation of telehealth services with remote patient diagnostics. This altered the way providers and healthcare members think about providing treatment. 

AI Applications in Healthcare 

Artificial Intelligence in healthcare is finding its way into the supply chain and smartphones. The AI applications in healthcare can be termed broadly under 3 categories:

• Clinician-oriented AI
• Patient-oriented AI
• Administrative and operational-oriented AI

AI in healthcare in the future can perform a multitude of tasks ranging from simple to complex. From answering phone calls to reviewing medical records, analyzing the population health and analytics, making a clinical diagnosis, therapeutic drug and device designs, understanding radiology images, and even communicating with the patients. Artificial intelligence in healthcare represents: 

• The overview of AI in healthcare-oriented integration, machine learning for healthcare, and natural language processing. 
• The future and current applications of AI in healthcare can impact the patients, providers, and the pharma industry. 
• AI will unfold several technologies in the future that will create an impact on the practice of healthcare and medicine. 

Current Trends of AI in Healthcare 

AI technology in healthcare is consistently used widely across the different sectors of healthcare. The global leading tech companies are collaborating and working on hosting an initiative based on AI-powered improvement of diagnostic accuracy, patient care, and treatment methods. AI in healthcare current trends include: 

• Medical diagnoses

  AI allows researchers to develop an even algorithm that can help to diagnose a vast range of chronic conditions like cancer with incredibly high accuracy factors. The right AI applications in healthcare can help develop an algorithm technology that can help to analyze slides and patient scans, detect abnormal pathology slides and provide accurate outcomes. 

• Data analyses

  Trends in medicine bring forth a use case AI where analysis of a vast amount of data can be done in a short period. It allows researchers to identify the severity, number, and locations of people going through critical situations healthwise. 

• Development of medicines

  AI in healthcare is being used in the development of drugs and medicines. Researchers have identified that machine learning helps to speed up the accuracy of developing medicines and improves patient care quality. 

• AI promotes health and prevents diseases

  Machine learning paired with AI technology in healthcare enables researchers to have accessibility to a large amount of patient data and determine the range of various health patterns that can be identified. Providers and researchers can use this data to determine the next course of action that will help patients live healthier lives with low risk. The new healthcare technology can help researchers to anonymize the data of patients and develop a particular strategy for personalized care plans. 

What AI Technology in Healthcare has been Implemented?

AI in healthcare has served the industry with various digital innovations that have changed the traditional workflow in a healthcare setting. In turn, it has assisted providers and nurses in offering high-quality care to patients. Some of the implementations of AI technology in healthcare are listed below.

1 AI-Assistance for Robotic Surgery

Robotic surgery in healthcare isn’t unheard of, but cannot be completely reliable without the intervention of surgeons. AI-assisted robotics has provided a new kind of hybrid model that can be implemented in the scenario of surgery. AI-assisted robotic surgery can help surgeons operate with a higher degree of accuracy, precision, and control by providing the exact measurements and mapping required during microsurgeries. This advancement in healthcare will continue to enable surgeons in working for smaller segments with less invasion and more precision. 

2 Wellness and health tracking apps

AI is considered a wearables technology trend and can be integrated into fitness and wellness apps to help patients and people stay healthy and reach their goals of the day. IoMT network connects these digital healthcare devices, software, and hardware applications using the healthcare information technology link for better accessibility for the people. Its popularity is evergrowing and it has been standardized in smart devices companies are implementing fall detection, oxygen level measurements, heart rate monitoring, and even more with AI in healthcare.

3 Clinical diagnoses

The current AI in healthcare can help diagnostic physicians and pathologists for rapid and accurate diagnoses of patient conditions. Having a developed algorithm for identifying the health issues and treating a significant amount of patients through improved accuracy and determining capabilities of AI-oriented clinical diagnoses. 

4 Discovery of medicines

The research and trials of the pharma industry take years and cost a lot of money. The implementation of AI in the drug discovery business speeds up the process of medical discovery. New healthcare technology makes it more efficient for a wider variety of treatments for a large number of people. AI is used in the early stages of research and it helps to narrow down the discovery process that can help to find the potential medicines and drugs that can be cured. 

Benefits of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

AI in healthcare enables patient self-service to computer-aided detection systems (CADS), and imaging analysis of data in identifying the molecules in medicine discovery. AI still has other benefits to offer the industry. 

• Enhancing patient engagement and streamlining patient access to care delivery.
• Improving productivity of clinicians and providers to offer a better quality of care. 
• Offer personalized/customized medical treatments to patients by leveraging the analytics from non-clinical data collected. 
• Helps to accelerate the speed of pharmaceutical treatments and reduces the cost of the development process. 

AI can be considered a significant contributor to healthcare technology, it also has a vast synergic potential in improving patient care journey across the framework through better health maintenance and treatment. 

Looking forward to AI in Healthcare for 2022

The advancement in artificial intelligence in healthcare and machine learning has the potential for excellent integration in the industry. 

• Operating Rooms with integrated AI

  Operating rooms implementing AI and ML to efficiently deliver methods of accuracy and precision in providing proper operative care. With ORs having the majority of space in a hospital are using the AI for faster and more accurate procedures and less time required for recovery for patients. This is helping them get more surgeries done in less time. 

• Enhanced use of ML

  Machine learning or ML can make a significant impact when combined with artificial intelligence in healthcare. It provides the hospital systems with improved databases without being extremely programmed. It is most powerful when implemented for drug discovery, research in clinical settings, and diagnosing diseases. Integrating machine learning into healthcare can improve the accuracy of data collection and provide better patient outcomes as it creates a hands-off approach to medicine. 

  All in all, AI in healthcare will continue to play a major role in 2022 by creating a massive impact on the innovation of healthcare frameworks. AI is already helping to speed up the process of research in pharmaceuticals, reducing the cost of overall expenditure in the industry, and helping to increase care delivery accuracy. 

Final thoughts,

With several solutions enabling AI to provide well-documented factors to treat age-related and rising-chronic illnesses and providing creative healthcare solutions to medical professionals. AI-powered solutions will continue to make efforts into solving the necessary concerns and push the influence on the global healthcare business. With digital health companies assisting healthcare industries to take the next step forth in their systems, it can be an efficient pathway toward enhanced patient care delivery.

Author's Bio

Dr. Sonal Kedar