UncategorizedAI in Healthcare: a study of pros and cons

AI in Healthcare: a study of pros and cons

With AI revolutionizing all industries, it was only a matter of time before the same happened to healthcare. And if there’s one area where artificial intelligence could bring life-changing advancements, it is healthcare.
The correspondents from BBC speak to three Oxford-based scientists working around academia and the commercial world to use AI in the medical field.

“After years in the laboratory, the technology is already entering hospitals to assist doctors in the diagnosis and treatment of strokes,” said Michalis Papadakis, chief executive Brainomix.

Applications of AI in Healthcare

Papadakis continued his statement, saying “there’s a great potential to change outcomes for stroke patients: “After every 30 minutes, a stroke patient who could have been saved, dies or stays permanently disabled, not due to the stroke, but due to the reason that they’re admitted in a hospital that doesn’t have enough expertise to diagnose and pick the real life-saving treatment path.”
The Brainomix’s chief executive is collecting data from brain scans to make it possible for AI to detect what happens when someone has a stroke. His work came with data from thousands of brain scans, helps doctors interpret images, and generate quick decisions that are needed when it is suspected that a patient has undergone a stroke.

“The outcomes have provided that the sensitivity of healthcare providers increases significantly with the use of AI tools in diagnosing and detecting stroke damage on the scans compared to how they’re doing it manually,” Michalis Papadakis said.

“At the time, the biggest challenge is getting doctors to adopt this new way of working through AI technology,” Papadakis further explaining the scenario for AI in health.

Antoniya Georgieva's work on AI applications in healthcare
Dr. Antoniya Georgieva

For more than ten years into a project which again has depended on gathering a vast store of data, Antoniya Georgieva, the Scientific Director at Oxford Centre for Fetal Monitoring, has still some way off. Her research involves monitoring babies in the womb, and she started it from foetal monitoring units in labor wards in Oxford dating back to 1993.

According to Georgieva, the aim of her study is to get a clear understanding of “how to automate the process where medical consultants and midwives can be alerted to the unusual cases where a baby is experiencing breathing concerns and could end up receiving brain damage.

“We are taking anxiety from having to look at complex graphs, complex stats that take time, that humans are just not so good at,” says Antoniya Georgieva while explaining the vision & mission of her research work.
“The new technology-supported system will monitor those graphs and tells the human specialists exactly when they need to be worried,” said Georgieva.

Observed in a hospital for ten years and learned as much as she can about medicine, Dr. Georgieva is not having any hurries to turn her research into a commercial venture. She implies just how multifaceted the interaction between her algorithms and the bulk of physiological data is, as well as how long it takes to be clear that the AI system is generating some better outcomes.

Even earlier on the path from AI ideas to real-world developments is the effort of Charlotte Deane, Professor of Structural Bioinformatics at Oxford University. She, along with her doctoral students, is focusing on the problem of applying artificial intelligence in drug discovery, a lengthy and expensive trial of creating new medical products.

Can AI revolutionize healthcare? Charlotte Deane explaining the process
Prof. Charlotte Deane (Head of Department, Statistics, University of Oxford)
“Even if AI could remove 10% of the cost of a new drug, which costing as much as $2 billion and taking as much as 30 years, that would be a huge gain, says Pro. Deane.
According to Deane, the hype around AI isn’t helpful, but the progress is being made: “The tasks are really huge, as biological data is noisy and complex to deal with. However, the algorithms we now have are starting to deliver us the possibility to make a real difference.”

Things are going quite nice for Deane’s research, except the one problem that her doctoral students continue getting hired by the biotech firms clustered around Oxford. Still, the determined powerhouses keep putting their efforts in the global application of AI in the area of healthcare.

Most recent researches in the field of AI in Medical Diagnosis:

Business Insider Intelligence, in recent times, has examined the value of AI applications in three high-value areas of medical diagnosis – imaging & interpretation, clinical decision assistance, and personalized medicine – to demonstrate how the technology can drastically improve patients’ outcomes, lower expenses, and enhance productivity.
For this, researchers from Business Insider remain focused on US healthcare systems that have effectively applied AI in these use cases to validate where and how medical specialists should implement AI technology.
Finally, they examined how a frontline US health system authenticates AI partners and internally establishes its AI strategy to offer health provider organizations a template for AI innovation.
The major companies included in this research are Arterys, Boston Gene, Allscripts, Cabell Huntington Hospital, Epic, Google, HCA Healthcare, Geisinger Health System, IBM, IDX, ICAD, Oak Street Health, Tempus, Stanford University, Verily, UCI Health System, and Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

– Use of AI in interpreting imaging, clinical decision support, and precision medicine across hospitals
– Those US hospitals who haven’t applied AI missing the tech’s gain until they don’t develop an effective AI strategy
– Those who already have implemented AI reaping the reward in medical diagnosis through driving efficiency, reducing costs, and increasing overall outcomes
– Strategies enlighten the need for an AI strategy fortified by talent, data accumulation techniques, and cooperative associations with external vendors.

Nathan Enzo
Nathan Enzo
A professional writer since 2014 with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communication, Nathan Enzo ran the creative writing department for the major News Channels until 2018. He then worked as a Senior content writer with LiveNewsof.com, including national newspapers, magazines, and online work. He specializes in media studies and social communications.

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