Artificial intelligence has made significant advancements in healthcare. Its impact is already observed in a wide range of areas, including medical diagnosis, disease management, and, most important of all, patient care.
From curating personalized treatment plans to enhancing pathology reports and even predicting the onslaught of certain health conditions, the future of healthcare is going to be much better, all thanks to AI and its related technologies.
Digitization in healthcare came long back, but AI has given a pathway for using all the data generated through digitization. Let’s find out how AI is revolutionizing healthcare and forming new digital health trends.
How is AI Transforming Patient Care?
AI can analyze and learn from huge amounts of datasets and deal with complex information at a much faster rate than humans. This gives AI its characteristic trait of helping process data accurately and efficiently. More importantly, the technology is getting even more sophisticated than before, thanks to the new advancements paving the way for healthtech innovations.
1. Helping Patients Reduce Hospital Visits and Stay Healthy
AI-driven consumer applications are helping patients fight their conditions and improve recovery with personalized recommendations and stimulating behavioral change.
These applications proactively assist patients in maintaining a condition-specific lifestyle while ensuring they don’t’ steer towards a lifestyle that aggravates their conditions.
At the same time, AI health tech innovations connect patient data with healthcare staff, informing them about the patient’s day-to-day patterns. Using this information, nurses and doctors can intervene when necessary and provide guidance while the patient is at home without needing to call them to the hospital.
Case in Point: Mayo Clinic uses expansive patient data and AI with machine learning capabilities to extract medical insights on a scale humans cannot match. Leveraging AI, they can now interpret medical imaging faster than before and provide personalized care at a great scale.
2. Early Disease Detection with AI-Driven Analysis
AI has proven effective in detecting diseases, including cancer, which is a difficult condition to get a grasp on. Human-operated analysis leads to a high proportion of mammograms being falsely identified as cancer.
With AI being utilized in reviewing diagnostic reports, the same mammograms are not read with 99% accuracy and at a 30X faster rate.
Accurate disease detection by AI is powered by access to data which we are now generating through wearables, digital implants, and smart sensors. Taking data from these sources, AI programs can better monitor health conditions and predict potential life-threatening episodes earlier when they can be effectively treated.
John Hopkins adopted AI to leverage its predictive analytics, leading to early detection of patients’ health deterioration and early signs of sepsis.
3. Ensure Adherence to Medication and a Healthy Lifestyle
Around 42% of doctors agree that only 25% of their patients are highly engaged in following the lifestyle they recommend based on the condition. Given the limitations of a doctor or a nurse for their interaction with the patients once they are discharged, they cannot be around all the time to manage.
However, with AI integrated into the patient’s life, it can help enforce rules and nuance interventions that will help continue the care patients need to recover and live a healthy lifestyle.
Moreover, the data supplied by all the peripherals used by patients, including wearables, biosensors, smartphones, IoT devices, etc., is used by AI systems to tailor recommendations in real time.
4. Using AI for Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)
The future of healthcare is bright when you see AI-based solutions are helping patients, doctors, and nurses stay connected. While ensuring continuous engagement with healthcare institutions, AI programs are also configured to send alerts when changes are observed in the patient’s condition.
Access to this information in real-time gives care providers time to take swift action and easily manage chronic conditions, especially diabetes, heart conditions, respiratory conditions, etc.
Babylon Health is actively using AI for patient health monitoring in the hospital or when they are at home. They are using AI for health assessments and conduct virtual consultations.
5. Using AI for Enhanced Diagnostics and Imaging Analysis
AI-driven diagnostics have already made their mark in healthcare for their accuracy. Especially in radiology and pathology, machine learning algorithms and AI systems can analyze complex information and medical data to identify patterns that are missed by the human eye.
We have already cited an example above on AI’s precision in detecting cancer from mammograms. Similarly, with AI integrated into diagnostics, not only can doctors reduce diagnostic errors but also improve patient outcomes.
AI in Radiology: AI can interpret X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs to identify abnormalities like tumors, fractures, and any other anomalies. This speeds up the diagnostic process and enhances accuracy while highlighting the early signs of diseases.
Google spearheaded the development of DeepMind to interpret radiographs to detect over 50 eye conditions with impressive accuracy. Currently deployed at Moorfields Eye Hospital, this system enables early detection and helps provide timely interventions.
AI in Pathology: Just as AI is improving radiology diagnosis, it has a similar impact in pathology, where it’s actively involved in cancer detection. By quickly scanning and interpreting test slides, AI can detect malignant cells and pinpoint cancerous cells with much better precision.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center leverages AI for cancer diagnosis and analyzing tissue samples. It’s complementing radiologists’ expertise in the field leading to quicker results and more precision patient care.
6. AI for Drug Discovery and Development
Another health tech innovation powered by AI is drug discovery and monitoring drug efficacy while identifying their adverse effects without any clinical tests on animals and humans.
In addition to this, AI-based insights and adverse effects can help identify emerging trends in society. These trends are leveraged by pharmaceutical companies to identify popular segments that will benefit the most from certain medications and lead the way for better treatment.
A Preview in the AI-Driven Future of Healthcare
The future of healthcare is poised for a greater transformation than what we see today. Emerging AI technologies and innovations will continue to evolve and present better outcomes by enhancing current practices.
We say this because a lot is going on today in the healthcare world, and even our healthcare developers are facing challenges in keeping up with this growing ecosystem.
Leveraging AI’s Precision for Robotics Surgery: Surgeon-headed robotics surgeries are already an established practice. But down the line, we can expect AI to take over with autonomous surgical robots performing surgical tasks independently. Using advanced machine learning, AI-powered robots learn to perform surgeries with precision.
Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) is in its experimental phase. Once fully developed, it can perform soft tissue surgeries with much better precision than human surgeons.
Digital Twins in Healthcare is now Possible: The digital twins technology was until now limited to the construction industry. But it’s in the developmental phase with healthcare-specific utilities. It will help create a digital replica of the patient and it can be used to simulate the body’s reaction to different treatments.
A Cleveland based clinic is already experimenting with digital twins technology to better understand patient’s health and how their surroundings influence their overall anatomy.
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence has proven significant in improving how healthcare solutions are delivered and how patient care can be improvised. Taking healthcare to a personal level is only possible with AI, as the amount of data required to personalize healthcare solutions can only be analyzed by AI-based solutions.
Several important digital health trends are already being implemented at a large scale, while others are in the development and testing phase.
At Helius, we always stay updated with the latest developments and healthtech innovations. When you hire healthcare software developers from Helius, they bring all their existing and future-ready knowledge to the table and guide you in building the best possible solutions.
