Impact of AI Solutions in Healthcare | Azure AI Services

As we know, the healthcare industry is experiencing a transitional change in its operational model. The pandemic’s impact has urged the healthcare industry to leverage the latest technology solutions to offer better care to patients and improve healthcare eco-system. Several technologies like AI, Cloud, IoT, Robotics, AR & VR contribute to this transitional change & in revamping the healthcare systems. But if we had to pick one technology that can instigate a substantial impact with its wide array of solutions — then it has to be “Artificial Intelligence.”

AI is no more an Imaginative Concept

AI isn’t something new that just popped up in the Digital Transformation era. Its roots trace back to the early 1950s when John McCarthy first coined AI as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines.” Since then, AI has only continued to grow bigger despite facing many setbacks in its groundbreaking journey. AI’s ability to match up with human intelligence has been the pivotal factor of its significant growth. Its ability to understand and demonstrate the human behaviors associated with the intelligence component makes this technology really special.

Today, AI applications are prevalently used in all major industries owing to its cognitive architecture. Industries like healthcare, retail, e-commerce, financial markets and services, logistics, and transportation benefit from artificial intelligence. But if we pick out one specific industry from the above that can be revolutionized by AI; then it would obviously be healthcare.

AI in healthcare

Any technology that aids in the betterment of human lives is considered to be a significant invention. One such technology that has got a lot to offer human society is artificial intelligence. Though AI has already been a part of the healthcare ecosystem, its solutions’ prominence was unraveled only in recent years — especially in the digital transformation era. Soon after the pandemic outbreak, healthcare organizations across the globe were forced to revamp their operational structure and offer better care to patients in the “new normal” world. This is where digital transformation came to the rescue with a bunch of technology solutions like AI, Cloud Computing, and IoT to enhance remote patient monitoring techniques and provide faster access to healthcare providers.

Digital Transformation — The Next Big Thing in Healthcare

Transforming Healthcare with AI Solutions

AI has begun to transform the healthcare industry with its large pool of solutions focused on offering better care to patients and improving the healthcare systems. Today, several healthcare organizations believe that artificial intelligence is the right fit technology that can drive a tremendous change in the way healthcare operations are currently dealt with.

Reports by Frost & Sullivan in the year 2016 has predicted that AI healthcare solutions for hospital workflows will improve care delivery and offer better insights for clinical decision support. The analysis also stated that AI healthcare solutions have the potential to improve the overall outcomes by 30 to 40 percent while cutting the medication costs by as much as 50 percent.

As long as we witness the advancements in computing power, machine learning algorithms, NLP, and big data — AI solutions will continue to impress the healthcare industry with its advanced solutions. Let’s take a deeper look at some of the solutions of AI in healthcare.

Diagnostics — Medical diagnosis is an important sector where AI healthcare solutions play a critical role by providing deeper insights into diagnostics, patient care, and treatment options. AI also equally contributes to chronic disease management & clinical decision making with the aid of machine learning algorithms. Electrocardiograms, cardiac MRI images, and CT scans are some of the areas where diagnostic information is highly beneficial. Today, researches are also being performed with the aid of AI-driven healthcare solutions (machine learning & deep learning techniques) to identify cancerous tissues and study the causes and effects of several diseases.

Virtual Assistance — Soon after the pandemic, healthcare organizations have largely relied on Virtual Health Assistants (VHA) for continuous monitoring of their patients’ health conditions. Given the current situation, remote patient monitoring has been the only option for healthcare organizations to stay connected with their patients. An integral part of this remote patient monitoring technique is the VHA, which constantly monitors the patients by keeping track of their health data. The AI-driven virtual assistants are even responsible for virtual appointments with doctors and diet reminders. These VHA’s are designed with the aid of AI, augmented reality, and cognitive computing.

Bots for Support — Healthcare chatbots are similar to Virtual Health Assistants. These chatbots are considered as the basic version of a VHA that helps in patient engagement. The AI-powered chatbots are helpful in addressing the queries of the patients round-the-clock. They are typically the go-to assistants for patients providing them with all the relevant medical information they seek. The AI chatbots are also capable of setting up appointments with doctors and monitor their health parameters regularly. A large ratio of people today considers chatbots as a reliable alternative to normal online searches — this defines the diagnostic ability of the AI chatbots. In addition to AI, a few supporting technologies help build powerful chatbots — they are NLP, NER, Machine learning, and Augmentation.

AI applications aren’t limited to the above solutions; there are a lot of other fields where AI is becoming a game-changer. They are,

• Drug Discovery
• Radiology
• Robotic Surgery
• Fitness Trackers
• Ophthalmology
• Disease Management
• Precision Medicine

Challenges of AI in Healthcare

Despite the fact that AI healthcare solutions are redefining the industry, some healthcare organizations are still skeptical about AI implementation. The Healthcare insiders report by KPMG revealed that 75% of healthcare insiders are concerned that AI implementation could threaten their healthcare systems’ security and privacy. Some of the other challenges being cost factors, implementation timeline, regulation policies, and technical understanding. Considering the evolution of technology and the in-depth knowledge of the solutions by AI experts, these challenges shouldn’t stop you from redefining your healthcare systems. With the aid of an adept technology partner who has profound knowledge and longstanding years of experience in Azure AI Solutions, your implementation journey should be facile; and that’s why we are here!

Get Ready for AI

Many healthcare organizations have already begun their AI implementations; they are on course in redefining their healthcare systems and operational model with the latest AI solutions. So, don’t you see a tremendous change coming your way?

Talk to our Azure AI experts, explore the extensive possibilities, and get to know how our Azure AI services could aid in improving patient care.

Originally published at https://www.preludesys.com on October 30, 2020.