Artificial Intelligence in Health Care: Benefits and Challenges of Technologies to Augment Patient Care

Today, algorithms are already outperforming radiologists at spotting malignant tumours, and guiding researchers in how to construct cohorts for costly clinical trials. However, for a variety of reasons, we believe that it will be many years before AI replaces humans for broad medical process domains. In this article, we describe both the potential that AI offers to automate aspects of care and some of the barriers to rapid implementation of AI in healthcare. GAO was asked to conduct a technology assessment on the use of AI technologies to improve patient care, with an emphasis on foresight and policy implications. This report discusses (1) current and emerging AI tools available for augmenting patient care and their potential benefits, (2) challenges surrounding the use of these tools, and (3) policy options to address challenges or enhance benefits of the use of these tools.

Because it grows and is developed based on information gathered, it also is susceptible to data collected being abused and taken by the wrong hands. The most obvious and direct weakness of AI in healthcare is that it can bring about a security breach with data privacy. AI in healthcare covers a wide range of assistance to algorithmic and tedious tasks that are part of the job of healthcare workers. Susan benefits of artificial intelligence in healthcare Murphy, professor of statistics and of computer science, agrees and is trying to do something about it. She’s focusing her efforts on AI-driven mobile apps with the aim of reinforcing healthy behaviors for people who are recovering from addiction or dealing with weight issues, diabetes, smoking, or high blood pressure, conditions for which the personal challenge persists day by day, hour by hour.

AI in health and medicine

Nine companies have been awarded funding through the third round of the AI in Health and Care Awards, which is accelerating the testing and deployment of the most promising AI technologies. The awards were set up in 2019 to develop AI technology focused on helping patients manage long-term conditions, improve the speed and accuracy of diagnosis, and ultimately help tackle the COVID backlogs and cut waiting lists. They are delivered between the NHS AI Lab, the Accelerated Access Collaborative and the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

A better approach would have meant  including data that captures or considers the social determinants of health along with health equity. These data points could include economic stability, neighborhood or environment attributes, social and community context, education access and quality, and health care access and quality. Rather than approaching AI as a broader digital transformation project, healthcare providers, who may be at a relatively low technological starting point, can pursue targeted deployments geared to specific patient outcomes.

What are the current and future use cases of AI in healthcare?

The best way to think about the technology’s future in medicine, they say, is not as a replacement for physicians, but rather as a force-multiplier and a technological backstop that not only eases the burden on personnel at all levels, but makes them better. AI is now top-of-mind for healthcare decision makers, governments, investors and innovators, and the European Union itself. An increasing number of governments have set out aspirations for AI in healthcare, in countries as diverse as Finland, Germany, the United Kingdom, Israel, China, and the United States and many are investing heavily in AI-related research. Policymakers could encourage interdisciplinary collaboration between developers and health care providers.

This can help strengthen the evidence base for this new technological trend so, if effective, nurses and other health professionals can use it to improve patient care. A recent review by O’Connor et al (2023) summarised 140 research studies on AI with applications in nursing and midwifery. The majority of studies were hospital based and used ML techniques to analyse data from the electronic health record to predict a range of patient outcomes or identify variables affecting outcome prediction (Table 1). A few studies examined how AI applications could improve nursing administration and management, such as nurse staffing and burnout. Some studies focused on nursing education using AI to predict student attrition, programme completion and graduation. Studies show significant gaps in average life expectancy between developed and underdeveloped nations as a result of limited or zero healthcare accessibility.

Conclusion and key recommendations

EHR developers are now using artificial intelligence to build more intuitive user interfaces and automate regular procedures that take up so much of a user’s time. Additionally, artificial intelligence may aid in processing regular mailbox requests, like prescription refills and test result alerts. Artificial intelligence has the potential to help alleviate the effects of this acute shortage of trained clinical benefits of artificial intelligence in healthcare personnel by taking on some of the diagnostic tasks that humans usually perform. However, algorithm developers must consider that distinct ethnic groups or inhabitants of distinct areas may have distinct physiologies and environmental variables that affect how illness presents. As such, AI is an established tool that is used in many sectors to enhance communication, support learning and improve decision making.

There are already limited appointments that stop clinicians from picking up on their patients’ body and verbal cues. As with many other industries, AI is poised to change the health care landscape over the coming years. In addition to improving health facility operations, patient diagnoses, treatment plan development, and overall health outcomes, AI is also expected to help with the development and discovery of new medical cures. Artificial intelligence (AI) has already changed much of the world as we know it – from automating systems to improving the decisions we make and the ways we go about making them. Yet, perhaps the most impactful and personal ways AI is changing our world are within the field of health care, where it’s being used to diagnose, create personalized treatment plans, and even predict patient survival rates.

Respectively, General AI (Artificial General Intelligence or AGI) takes narrow applications to the next level and is where we are currently heading towards. While ANI is exceptional at running automated tasks, the objective of AGI is to create machines that can think in the context of humans, replicating the biological network of the brain. Broadly speaking, artificial intelligence is any task performed by a https://www.metadialog.com/ machine that would have previously been considered to require human intelligence, according to the fathers of the field, Minsky, and McCarthy, who came up with the term in the 1950s. Overcoming compliance challenges can be complicated further when there are additional factors to solve, such as existing software and infrastructure that is used to manage data from a range of different platforms and networks.

A Stanford article published in 1996 predicted the likelihood of death from AIDS from a data set of HIV patients much more accurately with AI technology than other methods used at that time. For example, AI-driven online symptom checkers, predictive models, and diagnostic programs must be carefully curated by physicians to reduce the risks of hallucinations (invented facts) or diagnostic bias based on race or other characteristics. Payers and health systems should also rely on input from clinicians to adapt AI applications to clinical and administrative workflows. Over the longer term, health systems can invest in more transformative AI applications to improve their competitive positioning, achieve profitable growth, engage consumers, and deliver personalized customer experiences. Health systems should actively cultivate their relationships with AI start-ups, technology and professional services firms, and academia, and consider taking a more active role in AI innovation.

The night owl’s disease problem

A successful implementation starts from implementing the right strategy and tackling various challenges in implementing AI that we have discussed in this article. On the other hand though, if AI were to handle the diagnosis, this could leave doctors with more time to focus on interacting with patients rather than sift through medical documentation. Once patients understand that robotic surgery means a shorter hospital stay, less scarring, lower levels of blood loss, and a faster recovery, they might be more open to AI. While discussing illness prevention, it’s also worth mentioning how AI-powered wearables can help detect non-infectious diseases.

They should also encourage stakeholders, including physicians, clinical staff, and administrative staff to strive to be champions and promote an AI-augmented workforce. As investments in AI increase and AI-powered solutions become more widespread in health care settings, the industry should address the new set of challenges both from the data used—including cyber threats—and the potential for bias in the AI algorithms. The strategy should comply with regulations—including to assure patient privacy and other HIPAA requirements (figure 6). It can provide healthcare professionals and surgeons with access to real-time information and intelligent insights about a patient’s current condition. This AI-backed information enables them to make prompt, intelligent decisions before, during and after procedures to ensure the best outcomes. As the volume of healthcare data continues to increase, AI is poised to drive innovations and improvements across the care continuum.

Benefits of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare in 2023

This is known as ‘black box AI’, which could mean the results produced by an AI tool may not be accurate and reliable (Wadden, 2022). Therefore, nurses and other professionals need to interpret the recommendations of any AI tool to ensure clinical accountability, patient safety and prevent any legal issues arising from overreliance on AI systems. To inform decision making, the recommendations of any AI application should be combined with clinical and managerial expertise, and patient values and preference (O’Connor et al, 2023).

Additionally, teaching institutions are increasingly leveraging these tools to enhance training for students, residents and fellows while decreasing diagnostic errors and risk to patients. AI’s full prowess is demonstrated when it’s paired with other technologies such as robotics where it combines analytical power with physical adeptness. Genki Kanda at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, for example, developed a robotic AI system that could improve stem cell procedures used in regenerative medicine.

There is a desperate need to treat and manage the condition, and AI can help providers understand the disease through data. The FreeStyle Libre glucose monitoring system, for instance, allows diabetes sufferers to track glucose levels in real-time, and access reports to manage and review their progress with doctors or support teams. Healthcare facilities are typically crowded and chaotic, making for a poor patient experience. In fact, a recent study shows that 83% of patients describe poor communication as the worst part of the patient experience.