AI in healthcare has been used to improve the discovery and development of new drugs, make earlier and more accurate diagnoses, optimize treatments, and efficiently manage medical resources.
The strong advance of Industry 4.0 in the world has generated great transformations in various areas. In particular, the health sector has greatly benefited from solutions coming from technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence, which imply, among other things, better decision-making, less use of resources, and greater efficiency in disease treatment.
The importance of AI in healthcare
The constant evolution of technology over the years has allowed the health industry to take advantage of the advances and innovations developed in this field to increase the quality of its services, its productivity, and performance. In this way, hospitals, clinics, and medical centers in general make use of new equipment, machines, and tools to enhance their benefits, improving their ability to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases in people.
In this line, today it is possible to analyze and process large volumes of information thanks to technologies such as artificial intelligence or big data, facilitating the development of research tasks focused on the emergence of new solutions that improve care for people . . Thus, it is estimated, for example, that investment in AI by 2025 in the global health industry will be USD 36,000 million, 50% more than in 2018.
Significant advances are driven by big data and AI in healthcare
The following are the main advances that technologies such as big data and AI have represented in the health industry :
Discovery and development of new drugs
Thanks to artificial intelligence, it is possible to predict the behavior of certain molecules to analyze whether they can give rise to a new drug. Thus, the number of failures in clinical trials is reduced, the research and search for new drugs are expedited and production costs are reduced.
Earlier and more accurate diagnoses
Making early and accurate diagnoses is one of the main keys to the proper treatment of a disease. In this regard, artificial intelligence is already capable of more accurately predicting diseases such as cancer, arrhythmias, eye disorders, and childhood pathologies, taking into account that 15% of the diagnoses made by professionals are wrong.
Most Effective Treatments
From the data stored and processed by big data and AI, it is possible to optimize the treatments of people with diseases such as cancer by analyzing through detailed images the speed of growth and degree of dissemination of this disease in a person’s body to define the most appropriate treatment.
For example, deep learning models are being developed to more accurately determine the potential for bladder cancer spread. In this way, through chemotherapies, it is sought to eliminate the cancer cells that appear around this organ to avoid a relapse after surgery.
Efficient management of medical resources
As a result of the large amount of information that big data can store and process, it is possible to better predict the influx of people in a medical center on a given day and time. Thus, the medical hours and health resources available can be optimally managed to deliver prompt care to patients.
In particular, this solution represents a great help to manage a better appointment scheduling system after nearly 68 million people in Europe lost a medical hour due to the pandemic.
Clinical history of each patient
Another of the benefits that big data promotes in the field of health is to generate a clinical history of each person that compiles the diseases and pathologies that they have suffered over the years. In this way, doctors can have a much broader perspective of the health status of their patients to carry out more appropriate and effective indications and treatments.
Support for caregivers
Finally, one of the significant advances of AI in health is related to the development of tools to support caregivers who take responsibility for people with chronic diseases, being able to access remote monitoring, telehealth, and even virtual and augmented reality to receive training and coaching in terms of treating your sick loved ones.
As can be seen, technology in health promotes a series of advances and innovations that optimize the care provided by different medical institutions, so this relationship is expected to remain stable over time to improve the quality of care. Life of the people.
