AI is having a profound impact on industries across the board, but particularly healthcare. Companies in this sector are benefiting enormously from its input, especially in clerical domains.
The purpose of this post is to explore more deeply how AI is impacting healthcare and what it might mean if you’re someone already in this industry, or you want to make the shift.
Improved Diagnostics
Five years ago, the AI industry was excited by the prospect of artificial intelligence helping to improve diagnostics. That didn’t happen immediately, despite early attempts by IBM, but now it is coming of age. The technology is advancing rapidly, meaning that AI systems are getting better and providing diagnostic inputs. While some improvements still need to be made, many healthcare professionals now use these tools to provide second opinions or perhaps point out features or details in the imagery that they hadn’t seen before.
Streamlined Operations
On top of this, artificial intelligence is helping to streamline operations. The average clinical notes AI app for healthcare professionals is now many times more powerful than it was in the past, providing insights, real-time note-taking, and data protection.
The purpose of these tools is to cut operating costs. Healthcare businesses are using them to reduce their overhead and get more done during the day.
Personalized Treatment Plans
Related to this last point, there’s also the rise of AI being used for personalized treatment plans. Language models that understand the underlying diagnostics are getting better at putting these together for their patients, based on the information they provide.
Personalized treatment plans combine patient data with known understanding of the variation between people. AIs stitch all the information together to develop a schedule for the patient to follow, based on their biomarkers and other measurements. Without this data, doctors would have to do the heavy intellectual work, and that could take time.
Improved Patient Engagement
On the front end, AI is being used to help healthcare professionals and their businesses better engage patients. Many are leveraging their data and using it to provide virtual support or answer questions. Already, there are countless AI chatbot companies serving this market, but that figure is set to explode over the coming years. Furthermore, AI can also help with marketing or even offer health advice, based on the information available about the patient.
Predictive Analysis
AI models are also getting better at helping healthcare businesses better predict the future. For example, software might be used to forecast a patient’s likely disease trajectory or whether an outbreak is likely. These technologies reduce the risk of readmission (especially for chronic diseases) and improve population health management.
Overall, the impact of AI on the sector will be substantial. While the cloud computing revolution was impactful, this latest improvement in the core technology will likely do even more to boost service quality. Combining these technologies will essentially make the patient and professional experience unrecognizable going into the future. Less backroom operations and more patient-focused work will occur going forward.
