As the world quickly develops a taste for Artificial Intelligence, all digitalized industries find themselves on the cusp of a new tech era. According to Precedence Research, “the global artificial intelligence (AI) market size was valued at USD 454.12 billion in 2022 and is expected to hit around USD 2,575.16 billion by 2032, progressing with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19% from 2023 to 2032”. The AI transformation of healthcare specifically may be a bit harder to pull off, as well as have a grander effect on human lives, but why? Today Innovecs explores how and why AI is gradually taking over patient care, and which obstacles stand in the way of this medical and technological revolution.

Today’s boom of AI might make it seem like this technology has emerged fairly recently, but nothing could be further from the truth. The talks on the significance of AI are as old as the first computer (or as the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz). The medical field did not take long to enter the discussion, and healthcare researchers have started to harness the potential of artificial intelligence as early as at the start of the 70s.

The earliest uses of AI in healthcare primarily focused on expert systems and decision support tools. For example, INTERNIST-1, an algorithmic model for disease diagnosis, came out in 1971 to assist in diagnosing internal medicine cases. It utilized a vast database of medical knowledge and patient data to generate differential diagnoses and recommend further diagnostic tests or treatments.

Mycin, developed at Stanford University in 1972, was a backward chaining expert system designed to assist physicians in diagnosing bacterial infections and recommending appropriate antibiotics. It demonstrated the potential of AI to replicate human expertise in medical decision-making and paved the way for other AI-based systems that came after.

According to a 2023 review by BMC, today’s AI use in clinical practice is split up into four main categories. AI technologies are being deployed to:

• enhance medical diagnostics;
• personalize treatment plans;
• improve population health management;
• and optimize patient care.

The overall landscape is characterized by rapid advancements and widespread adoption across various domains. Applications range from medical imaging analysis to predictive analytics for disease diagnosis to virtual health assistants and telemedicine platforms. Moreover, AI is driving innovations in drug discovery, clinical trial optimization, and healthcare administration, leading to more efficient workflows and cost-effective healthcare delivery. BMC claims: “AI-driven predictive analytics can enhance the accuracy, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of disease diagnosis and clinical laboratory testing. Additionally, AI can aid in population health management and guideline establishment, providing real-time, accurate information and optimizing medication choices”.

The potential AI technology holds for medicine is boundless, but in modern-day reality, only fragments can be fulfilled. Let’s investigate the three most widely-known benefits of AI that we see in clinical practice today: efficient and timely diagnoses, personalized treatment plans, and delegation of repetitive administrative tasks.

The use of technology to increase the precision of processes at risk of human error is a time-tested practice. In clinical practice, AI technology is utilized to improve diagnostics via the good old combination of accuracy, speed, and pattern recognition. The main examples of AI use for better diagnostics are:

• Early Disease Detection. By leveraging predictive analytics, AI algorithms identify individuals at high risk of disease onset or progression, enabling early intervention.
• Medical Imaging Analysis. AI algorithms are trained on large datasets of medical images (such as X-rays, CT scans, MRIs, and histopathology slides) to accurately detect and classify abnormalities. Deep learning models, in particular, can identify patterns and features indicative of specific diseases, enabling earlier and more accurate diagnoses.
• Clinical Decision Support Systems. AI-powered decision support tools analyze complex data sets to generate differential diagnoses, recommend appropriate tests or treatments, and provide relevant clinical guidelines, helping clinicians make more informed diagnostic decisions.
• Genetic Analysis. AI algorithms are used to analyze genomic data and identify genetic variants associated with disease susceptibility, drug response, and treatment outcomes. This information enables personalized diagnostics and treatment strategies tailored to individual patients’ genetic profiles.

AI algorithms analyze patient data to tailor treatment plans to individual patients. By identifying unique genetic markers, disease characteristics, and treatment responses, AI enables personalized interventions that maximize efficiency and minimize adverse effects.

Treatment Recommendations

 
AI-powered clinical decision support systems analyze vast amounts of medical data to assist healthcare providers in selecting the most appropriate treatment options. These systems consider factors such as disease severity, comorbidities, drug interactions, and patient preferences to generate evidence-based treatment recommendations in real-time. Some examples of such solutions are:

• Boltzmann machine, a type of neural network composed of interconnected nodes, known as neurons. Boltzmann machines use a form of unsupervised learning to discover hidden features and structure in the data. They help to predict treatment outcomes and to provide data-driven recommendations.
• Recurrent neural networks (RNN) can be used to predict patient outcomes based on longitudinal patient data, such as electronic health records (EHRs), vital signs, and medication histories. RNNs have shown promise in tasks such as disease progression modeling, patient risk prediction, and time series forecasting, enabling clinicians to make more informed decisions and improve patient care.
• Support vector machine (SVM) is an algorithm used for cancer classification, disease risk prediction, and medical image analysis, contributing to more accurate treatment recommendations.

Treatment Monitoring And Optimization

 
AI-enabled monitoring systems continuously analyze patient data to assess treatment efficacy and adjust interventions as needed. These systems detect subtle changes in patient condition, predict adverse events, and optimize treatment regimens in real-time. Innovecs has recently explored the topic of remote monitoring and looked at the various forms this technology takes today. Artificial Intelligence can affect and infuse all facets of treatment monitoring. For remote monitoring, it can be via automated wearable devices, remote patient monitoring (rpm) systems, telehealth platforms, or mobile apps. But optimization of treatment monitoring is also possible on-site, through the use of AI algorithms at hospitals and care homes, to track the progression of the patients.

Robotic Surgery And Intervention

 
AI-powered robotic systems enhance surgical precision and safety by augmenting the capabilities of healthcare providers during surgical procedures. Robotic surgical platforms utilize AI algorithms to interpret intraoperative data and assist surgeons in performing complex surgical tasks with greater accuracy.

In healthcare, availability and response time of medical professionals can quite literally mean life or death, so automating time-stealing processes is of utmost importance. With AI, delegation of repetitive menial tasks takes many forms, and in 2024, healthcare systems can choose from a long list of streamlining options. Artificial intelligence can:

• Extract and summarize information from medical documents via NLP;
• Automate charting and documentation;
• Process and analyze vast amounts of patient data;
• Rapidly interpret diagnostic tests and medical imaging studies;
• Automate image analysis and data entry;
• Free up healthcare professionals’ time;
• Optimize appointment scheduling, staff allocation, and facility utilization;
• Minimize wait times and reduce no-shows;
• Maximize operational efficiency in healthcare settings;
• Automate billing, coding, claims processing, and reimbursement tasks;
• Streamlining financial workflows with Revenue Cycle Management
• Identify coding errors, denials, and compliance issues;
• Analyze healthcare data and clinical documentation to identify fraud;
• Help healthcare organizations mitigate financial losses;
• Help healthcare systems to comply with regulatory requirements;
• Automate patient communication tasks.

Despite all of the rapid technological advancements we are witnessing thanks to AI, global adoption of this technology is still far away. Healthcare industry still has to work out some kinks before all of us can step into a fully automated and roboticized future.

A machine cannot comprehend the importance of a single human’s privacy and to make a conscious and empathetic decision to protect it. AI’s approach to confidential data is as strong or fragile as the rest of its code. That is why the humans preprogramming the algorithm have to make them as safe as possible in advance, taking care of several crucial aspects:

• Patient Confidentiality. AI systems require access to sensitive patient data, including medical records, genetic information, and diagnostic images. Ensuring the confidentiality of this information is paramount to protect patient privacy. Healthcare organizations are prime targets for cyberattacks due to the valuable patient data they possess.
• Secondary Use of Data. AI systems may utilize patient data for secondary purposes beyond their original intended use, raising concerns about data ownership, consent, and transparency. Patients should be informed about how their data will be used.
• Legal and Regulatory Compliance. Healthcare organizations must comply with various laws and regulations governing the collection, storage, and use of patient data. Failure to comply with these legal requirements can result in severe penalties, fines, and reputational damage.
• Transparency. AI algorithms often operate as “black boxes,” making it challenging to understand how they arrive at their decisions. Ensuring transparent practices in AI models is crucial for healthcare providers and patients to trust the recommendations and understand the rationale behind them.

Throughout centuries, the fruits of technological progress were preconditioned by the unforgiving growing pains of change management, financial investment, and early-stage trials-and-errors. Today’s widespread integration of AI is facing many of the same bottlenecks, with the added factor of overall international healthcare burnout. Some of the specific problems with integration of AI, are:

• Poor, Fragmented Data. For older systems, healthcare data is often scattered across disparate storage units and formats, making it difficult to aggregate and analyze. Data cannot be fed into an AI application until it gets standardized, and standardizing it takes time and effort.
• Legacy Infrastructure. Many healthcare systems rely on outdated technologies that lack interoperability and scalability. Integrating AI solutions into legacy infrastructure requires significant investments in hardware, software, and IT infrastructure upgrades, as well as interoperability standards and data exchange protocols.
• Workflow Integration. AI solutions must seamlessly integrate into existing clinical workflows and practices to be effective and sustainable. This requires a high level of collaboration between all healthcare professionals using the system, which can be hard to achieve in conditions of 24/7 strain, brought on by “the new emphasis on speed, efficiency and relative value units (R.V.U.)”.
• Change Management. Introducing AI technologies into healthcare settings requires cultural and organizational changes, as well as training and education for healthcare professionals and staff. Overcoming resistance to change, addressing concerns about job displacement, and building trust in AI technologies are all necessary steps for widespread AI adoption, but each of them comes with their own package of smaller challenges.
• Evidence-Based Implementation. Healthcare providers require evidence of AI effectiveness, safety, and clinical utility before integrating AI into routine practice. Generating real-world evidence and demonstrating return on investment is critical for gaining buy-in from stakeholders, but takes time, human resources, and effort.

While AI technology, and technology in general, can be used as a great equalizer of healthcare, digitally reaching the corners of the world that receive less in-person health supervision, the opposite is equally true. AI algorithms function based on the data fed into them by humans, and are therefore not immune to human biases. National Library of Medicine notes how “populations in data-rich regions stand to benefit substantially more vs data-poor regions, entrenching existing healthcare disparities”. Data-poor regions produce less data, become less studied, and receive less help, all the while data-rich regions provide fruitful soil for further research. In this vicious cycle, studying the communities that need healthcare the most remains a tough challenge, while research on areas under the spotlight accelerates and becomes more rewarding.

Additionally, Artificial Intelligence cannot distinguish true data from false, if it is all fed into the algorithm in the same way. This creates a paradox, where the technology that is mainly used to eliminate human error becomes informed by very human misinformation. Addressing algorithmic bias and ensuring fairness in AI decision-making require diverse representation in training datasets and ongoing monitoring and evaluation for bias, but algorithms are only half of the journey. Making sure that AI-powered tech solutions reach a wide spectrum of audiences is just as important as ensuring that the technological advancement of healthcare is universal. Addressing barriers to adoption, and promoting inclusivity in AI development and deployment internationally is essential to advance health equity and social justice.

Artificial Intelligence holds immense potential for healthcare, but it is paramount that we do not get too lost in the sauce as observers, developers, and users. Patient care has always been a human-centric field, the main purpose of which is to do no harm. It is with this idea in mind that we should create and train medical AI algorithms. After all, even a technology that is meant to make no mistakes isn’t immune to the biases and limitations of those who create it.

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