Healthcare IT and AI

The use of artificial intelligence makes the lives of patients, physicians, and hospital administrators easier since it is able to do jobs that are traditionally carried out by people in a shorter amount of time and at a lower overall cost. 

The artificial intelligence industry was estimated to be worth around $600 million in 2014 and is expected to reach $150 billion by 2026, making it one of the businesses with the greatest growth rates in the world. 

In the United States in 2015, incorrect diagnoses of sickness and other medical mistakes were responsible for 10% of all fatalities. In light of this, one of the most interesting uses of AI in the field of healthcare is the potential it has for enhancing diagnostic procedures. 

Incomplete patient histories and heavy caseloads both increase the risk of potentially fatal human mistakes. Artificial intelligence is immune to the aforementioned factors, which enables it to forecast and diagnose illness at a quicker pace than the majority of medical experts. An AI model that made use of algorithms and deep learning, for instance, was able to identify breast cancer at a rate that was greater than that of 11 pathologists in one research. 

Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms handle unstructured data from text, audio, and video sources using machine learning approaches. Scientific publications, technical and administrative reports, and electronic health records are used to collect healthcare data sharing solutions. Natural language processing technology aids in the conversion of unstructured data from various sources into structured data that clinicians may use for diagnosis and treatment.

NLP may also generate useful information from patient-doctor discussions, doctor’s voice notes, and other speech-based settings such as meetings and conferences. The following are the most prevalent NLP strategies for extracting information from unstructured healthcare data: 

The sentiment analysis produces three fundamental results — positive, neutral, and negative. However, depending on the application, the result may also be a numeric score for a number of other categories. 

Text Summarization is an NLP approach for summarizing long passages of text. It extracts or abstracts crucial information from medical papers using either extraction or abstraction techniques. Information retrieval aids in the discovery of important documents housed in big databases, such as electronic health records or scientific publications. Because of the vast amounts of information acquired from diverse sources, information retrieval is very helpful in healthcare. 

Question Answering enables digital systems to accept natural language inquiries, automatically process them, and offer rapid replies. The scarcity of knowledge regarding illnesses, treatments, and medical procedures, particularly in developing countries, makes quality assurance more vital to healthcare providers.

Medical assistant robots improve productivity by enabling doctors to concentrate on more critical concerns, while also making medical operations safer and more cost-effective. Assistant robots aid in the decontamination of rooms and operation rooms. In labs, they collect, transport, analyze, and store test specimens. Assistant robots prepare radioactive samples in radiopharmaceuticals to limit radiation exposure. They are employed in hospitals for routine logistics such as transporting bed linens and food. 

Patients’ assistant robots provide assistance throughout the recuperation and therapy stages. These robots are capable of monitoring a patient’s vital signs and notifying medical personnel in life-threatening circumstances. They immediately enter the patient’s information into their electronic health records and enable nurses to monitor numerous patients at the same time. Assistant robots assist patients with suggested physical exercises during physical rehabilitation. “Social robots” bring elderly people company following medical treatments. These robots can react to human speech, sense emotion, and amuse patients using powerful AI software. 

In the operating theater, surgical robots aid surgeons. Robots can make finer incisions than human surgeons, enhancing the efficiency and success of minimally invasive surgery. Modern surgical robots include high-definition 3D cameras that outperform the human eye and small wristed devices that can bend, lengthen, and spin in ways that the human hand cannot.