Benefits of AI in Healthcare – Healthcare AI has been flourishing at a very encouraging speed and its applications aren’t limited to the developed nations anymore. Even the developing nations are increasingly using AI in their healthcare ecosystem. This steady increase in its popularity has the potential to reshape the entire healthcare ecosystem. We may not perceive any significant change as of yet but down 5 years or a decade the AI will be a natural part of the medicinal ecosystem. It will bring several turnaround changes to the global healthcare landscape. Let us foresee some of the changes that AI can probably bring in the healthcare system.

Benefits of Using AI in Healthcare

Stopping diseases years before they start developing

AI will be equipped with extremely powerful predictive analytical capabilities. It would result in AI systems that can seamlessly compute a diverse set of data parameters spanned across numerous aspects and timelines to accurately anticipate disease in advance. These parameters won’t only be limited to our biological stats like heart rate and behavioural habits like smoking, but will also include things like our birthplace, air pollution levels of our location, our office, total incomes vs. expenses, and even our house and immediate neighbourhood. 

It means that AI would be able to predict many years (even a few decades) in advance about the potential future health risks for an individual like developing diabetes or High/low BP. 

It will eventually help in significantly reducing the cases of diabetes, Chronic Obtrusive Health care, and various other diseases related to social determinants. So, the cases of hospitalization will steadily decrease in a reasonable time and it would dramatically increase the efficiency of healthcare facilities, bring down the costs, and improve the overall healthcare services. 

Wide web of interconnected hubs to avoid logjam

 AI will also bring a turnaround change in the general physical ecosystem of healthcare facilities. Instead of massive hospital buildings for both serious and general medical cases, the main healthcare facilities would be reserved for serious cases requiring immediate attention. 

The general medical conditions and ailments would be diagnosed/treated through a web of digitally interconnected hubs. Likewise, the less serious injuries would be operated through smaller surgery clinics that require minimum formalities. Many tests could even be conducted in the patient’s place of residence or work. General consultancy services can be provided through digital conferencing. 

It will logically divide the physical structure of the healthcare ecosystem and streamline the entire workflow thus saving the doctors from unnecessary stress. It will also make it easier for the patients to get immediate treatment without waiting in the queues for hours together. Moreover, such streamlined healthcare facilities will also facilitate medical research tasks. 

All these hubs, smaller clinics, and kiosks would be digitally linked with a single online infrastructure for centralized documentation processes like report generation/analysis, prediction, diagnosis, and treatment documentation. It will not only eliminate the unnecessary access gaps between the healthcare staff/facilities and patients but will also help in clearing medical logjam and ensuring that the patients should get the best and timely care depending upon their specific health conditions. This priority-based treatment will also help resolve the more serious cases with a better success rate. 

So instead of the physical distance, the specific patient’s condition would play a decisive role in treatment access. It could bring a paradigm shift in the healthcare system by building an empathy-based treatment ecosystem.  

Channeling doctor’s time and efforts in the right direction

 One of the major issues for the doctors today- especially in public healthcare facilities- is to struggle with a large number of cases with insufficient resources. It is practically not justified to expect the doctors in such conditions to develop a natural affinity with their profession or take initiatives on their own. 

 By steadily investing in healthcare AI applications and integrating them in real-life medical cases it is possible to reduce the number of patients that need personal visits. It will thus relieve public healthcare professionals from unnecessary stress and allow them to concentrate on providing quality-based treatment. Moreover, the AI-based systems assistants will also help doctors to provide diagnosis and treatment to the patients which will not only save time but will also streamline their workflow and improve the performance delivery. 

Right from highlighting the major/abnormal stats t of multiple lab tests to presenting a summary of patients’ history, the AI systems can help the doctors in many ways to make their job easier. Surgery, even the minute one is another stressful task for the doctors due to the precision requirements entire process By that time the AI’s capabilities in guided surgery will also be enhanced to the level that the doctors can perform various surgeries with high accuracy with the help of AI assistants.

Preference based experience and resource management

 With each medical instance, the AI improves its skills and learns new things. Besides, the AI systems can learn to personalize it to the preferences of the doctors who are using AI systems. It allows AI-based systems to provide optimum experience to the doctors depending upon their preferences. The above mentioned centralized system can also integrate the AI-based inventory management and automated ordering system. Here too the prediction and pattern identification skills of AI can help in proactive ordering management to make sure that the doctors should never run short of the essential resources. 

Baking healthcare routine right into the daily lifestyle (naturally)

 The increasing use of IoT and wearables like smartwatches presents are the fair promise of increasing the use of sensitive monitoring devices by 2050. It means that people won’t have to wait for some disturbing health conditions to get their biological stats checked at healthcare facilities/labs. Instead, they can just lead a normal lifestyle while their vital stats (heart are, activity, calorie intake/burnout) being monitored 24X7 in the most convenient, natural, and nonintrusive manner with zero or minimal active efforts from patients; side. 

Moreover, instead of being passive stats recorders, the AI applications can actively interact with the people, remind them to take medicine on time, see the doctors depending upon their biological stats or medical schedule, or optimize their digital content (videos, blogs, and social media) to promote optimistic thinking for fighting depression. 

So the shift from a mandatory, mundane health schedule to a smarter healthcare routine seamlessly integrated into a normal lifestyle in a natural and nonintrusive manner would be another achievement in 2050.

Quick, personalized and accurate diagnosis / treatment

Today a large time is spent on understanding the exact and current health condition of the patient. The doctors go through the entire medical history, try to figure out the things and then practically check patients for the current condition. With the help of AI-IoT combo, the time spent on such primary tasks would be eliminated or minimized to negligible levels; The AI can study the medical history and then monitor the IoT data to generate quick summaries based on the same. Thus the doctors can understand the medical history and current condition at a glance or within a few minutes.

It will empower the doctors to offer immediate diagnosis/treatment plans to the patient. Moreover, the would have more time to offer personalized care or diagnosis to the patient by concentrating on the major highlights of the summary like medical allergens, response to past treatment plans and ongoing medicine schedule, or even the daily lifestyle/consumption stats.

Autonomy over biological data promotes ideal healthcare habits

The patients will have more autonomy over their data. This will go beyond just watching their biological stats changed over a day. The patients can also get detailed information about the average stats levels, the causes of abnormal stats, and the best things to do if the stats are below or above the average levels. This autonomy will help the patients to take care of more general health issues with the help of self-diagnosis. 

For more serious issues they can be alerted to visit the specialists. They can even get access to all the vital information about the healthcare facility like the name, distance, reputation, physicians name and contact, fees and prescription/consultancy charges, Moreover, health information, when imparted strategically and interactively will also allow the general public to take the best care of their health.