TOP 12 AI APPLICATIONS IN HEALTH SYSTEM

Top 12 AI applications in the Healthcare industry 

Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare System

Introduction:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been playing a major role in the healthcare industry and has been outperforming in various sub-sects of the healthcare industry. I had, in my last post, explained Artificial Intelligence and also enumerated many uses of AI in various sectors like Healthcare, Finance, Retail Market, Manufacturing, Transportation, Education, Entertainment, Agriculture, and Energy.  In this article, I am briefing about the applications of AI in the Healthcare system as under: 

1.    Diagnosis
2.    Medical Imaging
3.    Acting as Virtual Assistants
4.    Drug Discovery
5.    Prescribing Personalized Medicines
6.    Predictive Analytics
7.    Assisting Doctors in taking Clinical decisions
8.    Conducting Robotic Surgeries
9.    Remote Patient Monitoring
10.  Preventive Mechanism
11.  Acting as a Chatbot
12.  Accomplishing Administrative tasks

The application of Artificial Intelligence in the healthcare industry is enormous and in an uncountable way, they help humanity in general and medical professionals and patients in particular. Therefore, the increasing demand for AI-empowered applications in the healthcare system leads to innovations and improvisation depending upon the needs, which has attracted a huge investment from the medical field. 

ELABORATE STUDY: 

Now let us dive into the study elaborately on the above points: 

1. Diagnosis: 

• AI-empowered systems in the healthcare industry help the medicos in analyzing the data, reports obtained through various clinical tests, history of the patients, allergic conditions, etc. thereby proceeding with treatment plans, prescription of medicines, post-hospitalization procedures, diet plans, habitual advice, etc. 
• Based on the inputs of data fed to an AI-empowered system by way of X-Rays, CT Scans, MRI, Ultrasound, Mammograms, etc. early diagnosis of diseases can be done and accordingly a personalized treatment be given to a patient depending upon the conditions. 
• Though imaging technology has a history of many decades, with the empowerment of AI, accuracy can be ensured through the AMLS system, and reliability is improved. This helps the medical professionals in deciding on diagnosis and treatment thereon. 
• They help Doctors in determining the risks of developing cancer, heart disease, diabetic conditions, blood pressure, etc. so that preventive actions or remedial measures can be taken in time. AIs can also chalk out personalized treatment, medicines, and research. 

2. Medical Imaging: 

• The uses of AI algorithms have given successful results in analyzing Medical images. They identify delicate patterns and anomalies in X-Rays, CT Scans, Ultrasounds, etc. 
• AI-empowered CAD Systems assist the lab technicians and medicos in interpreting data, and reports, and providing ideas to conclusions. 
• For example, X-Rays are used to pinpoint fractures at an exact point, and Mammograms; CT scans help in the diagnosis of Cancers, heart diseases, and disorders in the neurological system with more accuracy and precision in a speedy manner. 
• The AI-empowered system goes deep into analyzing the data obtained through various data and reports thereby extending arms in helping medical professionals ascertain the severity and velocity of the disease so that prompt, personalized, and corrective treatments can be given to the patients. 
• Emerging diseases and their status can be identified and ascertained by an AI-empowered system when it reads various medical images like X-Rays, CT Scans, ultrasounds, etc. This results in the early detection of diseases enabling the adoption of proper corrective procedures at an early stage thereby avoiding the seriousness of the diseases and further damage caused. 
• AI-enabled systems can analyze Medical images taken over some time and observations can be made to confirm the status, improvements/deterioration, if any, and also the effectiveness or otherwise of the medicines prescribed earlier. This would serve the purpose of monitoring the progress of chronic diseases. 
• Adopting AI empowered system reduces the quantum of positives and negatives through ongoing analysis and learning data. This renders great help in improving the accuracy of diagnosis. 
• AIs can integrate data obtained from medical images with Electronic Health Records to compile a comprehensive medical history of the patient, which will help Medical professionals to provide effective care and personalized treatment to the patients.
• Workflow of the healthcare professionals can be made more efficient by automating routine tasks. This will include image reading, diagnosis, and taking decisions to carry out further procedures, which help the lab technicians and healthcare professionals in prioritizing the patients to give necessary attention immediately. 
• Analysis of Medical images can go a long way in training medical students with real data so that they become better equipped in handling realistic situations in a hospital. 

3. AI Acting as Virtual Assistants: 

• AI-empowered Virtual Assistants in the healthcare system provide adequate support to the Medicos and patients. They extend their arms in fixing up appointments, chatting systems, and giving directions to the labs, and hospitals.
• They are also coming in very handy for the healthcare professionals in prescribing medicines, and the patients in the purchase of medicines, They are bridging the gaps between the Doctors, Patients, and Lab officials thereby ensuring timely, speedy, and effective results. 
• Since AI-powered Virtual Assistants use search engines they enhance the experience of patients and physicians. 

4. Drug Discovery: 

• AI-empowered equipment can be used in the innovation, processing, and production of new medicines to help patients with effective, efficient, and proper treatments for their diseases. They are used in testing fields of innovative medicines and they give speedy, quality, and cost-effective results. Clinical trial data is fed into AI-powered systems for screening and obtaining the results. 
• Clinical trial data are supplied to the AI-powered system, which would be screened properly, passed through various testing procedures, and experimented whereupon the results would be scanned and a final report would be prepared. Finally, this entire process ends up with the production and marketing for consumption by humans. 
• Besides ensuring the precision of the output, it also curtails the time and cost spent by the laboratories and manufacturing industries and enhances the profitability of the manufacturers, and ultimately attracts investors to the healthcare system. 

5. Personalized Treatment: 

• On analysis of the data obtained from various test reports, scans of different types, X-Rays, mammograms, etc. AI-powered systems help the Medical field in properly diagnosing diseases and depending upon the velocity, treatments are taken forward by the Doctors. 
• AIs can also chalk out personalized treatment, medicines, and research. By studying the data and looking at the history of the patient, AIs can be used for proceeding with further treatment and prescribing necessary medicines and other habitual practices, thereby improving efficacy. 
• AIs can also recommend that patients adopt the required health styles like workouts, and diet plans, and even can suggest some stress management ways. AIs can analyze the progression of the treatment and suggestions for modification of medications, if necessary. 

6. Predictive Analytics: 

• The reliability and dependability of AIs have increased in the healthcare industry which has brought their essentiality. AIs can do predictive analysis by reading the data and history to predict the symptoms, patterns, and stages of diseases in a person so that the medicos can take appropriate decisions for proceeding further. 
• AIs can be used for the prediction of the velocity of highly contiguous and infectious diseases so that appropriate steps can be initiated in time for avoiding further mass spread and also for eradication. This also will enable the concerned agencies like the government, medical system, and general public to be aware of the diseases for initiating necessary pro-active, preparatory arrangements to mitigate the impact of that calamity, such as making available beds in the hospitals, ambulances, medicines, oxygen and other required paraphernalia to meet with any situation, as the entire globe had witnessed during the recent COVID-19 period. 
• AIs can perform predictive analysis for chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease so that proper monitoring of the concerned patients, take personal care can be taken by the Doctors. 
• AIs help in predicting the cost of production right from innovation, processing of components, production, and testing procedures in drug discovery and its end use to arrive at proper budgeting speedily. 
• They also help in the prediction of healthcare costs for individuals and the entire population by analyzing various data inputs supplied and arriving at an optimum budgetary allocation. This budgeting goes a long way for the healthcare system, and its associated agencies like Insurance companies, Policymakers, and researchers in the formation of strategies for cost management and improvement in the value of care. 

7. AI's role in assisting Medical professionals in decision-making: 

Applications of Artificial Intelligence in assisting Medical Professionals

• AIs can be used to analyze medical images, reports, and patient data which help physicians to detect and diagnose diseases accurately. On identification of patterns, stages, and anomalies, the doctors can proceed with the treatment as suggested by the AIs using the expertise of doctors. This also would enable the doctors to avoid the impact of any side effects causing added complications to the patients. 
• Data analysis done with the help of AI-empowered equipment may provide doctors to select the most effective treatments, and medicines without causing many side effects, and would give better results. 
• Based on the output given by AI equipment, the doctors can prescribe necessary medicines, dosages, adequate precautions to be taken by the patients in case of any emergency, and side-effects symptoms. 
• AIs can be used to analyze unstructured data obtained through electronic health records like scans, X-Rays, clinical notes, clinical literature, etc. with the help of Natural language processing (NLP) so that relevant information is extracted and the decision-making process is completed quickly and comfortably. 
• Integration of electronic health records, clinical notes, and analysis reports is done by an AI-powered system. Therefore, real-time recommendations are provided to healthcare professionals to take quick decisions. 
• Since AIs are getting updated with the medical data now and then and are getting updated with their exposure on an ongoing basis, healthcare professionals are getting updated results in decision-making depending upon the situation of the patient. 

8. Robotic Surgery:

• The significance of AIs has improved quite a lot in conducting Robotic surgeries to get enhanced precision, 3D models of surgical portion, and real-time operations, which ultimately reduces complications. 
• A comprehensive view of the surgical field is provided by an AI-empowered surgery system as the AIs can process and fuse images obtained from various medical formats like Scans, ultrasounds, mammograms, etc., and can increase the visualization capabilities. As a result, the surgeons get a comprehensive view and can navigate complex anatomical structures effectively. 
• Unintended motions caused by natural hand tremors and involuntary movements are filtered out with the help of analyzing the inputs given by surgeons to an AI-empowered Robotic surgery system. This prevents any mishappening or wrong surgery and provides smoother, steadier movements of Robotic surgical equipment, resulting in a high degree of accuracy. 
• Certain types of surgical tasks such as suturing, cutting, cutting, cauterizing tissues, etc. can be performed autonomously by Robotic systems or semi-autonomously with the combined efforts of a surgeon and an AI. 
• Based on the inter-operative data obtained by a Robotic system during any surgery, the surgeons can make real-time decisions. This becomes necessary for Surgeons so that they adapt themselves to an unexpected situation and make immediate decisions. 
• AIs can be used to analyze the performance of surgeons engaged in Robotic surgeries and evaluate their actions, presence of mind, etc. so that any improvement can be made in the future. 

9. Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM):

• Analysis of various data collected from wearable devices, sensors, and other systems, AI algorithms can detect activities, symptoms, and other indicators, which provide the overall health of a patient to healthcare professionals so that necessary steps can be initiated. 
• Any wrong signal from a patient’s present data on the heart condition, fluctuations in blood pressure, and glucose level can be easily detected by an AI system and can predict the doctors of the abnormality so that preventive measures can be taken immediately. 
• The remote patient monitoring system also helps the patients to get first-aid telemedicinal remedies from the respective healthcare providers. 
• RPM also monitors the usage of medicines by the patients and provides reminders to keep track of treatment plans such as reviews etc. 

10. Preventive Mechanism: 

• AIs can be used as a predictive analytic tool for enhancing the preventive mechanism. AI-powered systems can read the data in various medical reports, scans, ultrasounds, etc., and predict the nature of the disease so that preventive steps can be taken to avoid any serious situation. 
• As has been discussed elsewhere in this article, AIs can be used for analysis and computation of the likelihood of the impact on account of the extensive spread of contiguous and infectious diseases, and the concerned agencies are put on alert in advance. This would enable them to take appropriate steps like creating awareness of the consequences of such diseases, preventive care to be taken by the public, supplying relevant medicines for prevention, vaccination processes, etc. 

11. Uses of AIs acting as Chatbots: 

• Chatbots can act as intermediaries between patients and healthcare professionals. Chatbots are used for communicating with doctors, fixing up an appointment with them, making consultations, etc. 
• They also act as communication agencies between medical labs, technicians, pharma consultants, etc. AIs enabled Chatbots are acting as a bridge between patients and healthcare personnel. 

12. Assisting in Administrative Tasks: 

• AI-powered systems can be used for scheduling appointments, giving directions, and ascertaining the availability of healthcare providers in their vicinity or a nearby area. AIs can be used for sending reminders of appointments, and also for review visits. 
• AI-powered systems can be used for the collection of patient data, health history, and storage of particulars required for future use. 
• They are also used in the healthcare system for performing various administrative tasks like Registration of patients, maintaining a log about the health condition of the patient, medicines prescribed, clinical trials conducted, results, billing and coding, claim processing, document verifications, transcription services, Inventory management of medicines and medical equipment, etc. 

CONCLUSION: 

I shall, therefore, wrap up that the abundant usage of Artificial intelligence in the healthcare industry is quite appreciable. On the one hand, while this move towards AI-empowered systems by the healthcare industry has facilitated the patients, clinical laboratories, and medical professionals enormously, it has attracted quite a lot of investment in acquiring sophisticated instruments, which is a healthy sign for the economy. 

Therefore, the requirement and usage of Artificial Intelligence in the healthcare industry have been on the increasing trend and we shall be seeing various other options for using Artificial Intelligence in various other sectors, which I have outlined in my earlier blog post.  AI application in the healthcare system is a boon to the entire humanity.