Friday, March 5, 2021

3 Ways Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Healthcare by Jen Smith

 


(Image: Medical App Against Doctor Using Smartphone Stock Photo (Edit Now) 370726037

3 Ways Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Healthcare


Artificial intelligence is growing at an incredible pace, and it’s beginning to transform practices in virtually every industry. While artificial intelligence was once a relatively small field, AI systems have already changed various aspects of our business and professional lives.


In this article, we’ll cover three of the most important impacts of artificial intelligence on healthcare. With constant progress being made in healthcare software development, we can only imagine how the healthcare industry will be leveraging the power of artificial intelligence in 2030 or even 2025.


Risk Analysis


Doctors can make informed judgements about patient risk, but humans are simply incapable of the large-scale analysis that characterizes artificial intelligence. AI solutions can analyze massive volumes of patient data to identify trends that might be invisible to a healthcare professional.


In fact, one study found that modern AI systems could decrease 30-day hospital readmissions by more than 10 percent. That improvement alone could save the healthcare industry more than $20 million every year, and it’s just one of many promising applications of artificial intelligence.


Drug Development


Identifying, developing, and testing new drugs is an incredibly complex process, and AI can make it both most efficient and cost-effective by analyzing information on past treatments and finding new therapies with a high chance of success. Again, this is an area in which the abilities of artificial intelligence far exceed what any human actor could do with the same information.


With artificial intelligence, drug producers could weed out treatments that are unlikely to succeed while putting more resources into the most promising treatments. The advantages of AI for drug discovery have been clear for several years now, and its capabilities will only grow as the technology develops and companies continue building even more powerful solutions.


Primary Care


Artificial intelligence may never completely displace human doctors and nurses, but it can minimize unnecessary appointments and clinic visits by handling a variety of basic inquiries. A medical chatbot, for example, could respond to questions about a patient’s health or treatment plan, or refer them to a professional if the chatbot can’t provide the right answer.


This application of AI is highly scalable, and it could take pressure off of medical professionals by giving them more time to focus on urgent problems that artificial intelligence isn’t (yet) capable of solving. It’s particularly relevant for underserved populations who may not otherwise have access to vital information.


Artificial intelligence is already shifting the way we think about healthcare, and its effects will become even clearer over the next few years. These are just a few of the most promising applications of artificial intelligence in the healthcare industry.