What Role Does AI Play in Healthcare?

AI is becoming more sophisticated at doing what humans do, but more efficiently, faster, and for less money. Both AI and robotics have enormous potential in healthcare. AI and robotics are increasingly a component of our healthcare ecosystem, just as they are in our daily lives. Artificial intelligence consulting can help healthcare organisations make the most of AI.

Here are 5 ways that AI helps healthcare:

5 Ways in Which AI Helps in Healthcare

1. Provides Data in Real-time 

Acquiring reliable information promptly is an important part of diagnosing and treating medical problems. In this light, doctors and other medical professionals can use AI to use real-time, precise data to speed up and improve key therapeutic decisions. With realistic and immediate results, they can save on cost while enjoying more accurate results. 

Better yet, they also enjoy improved preventative measures and reduced patient wait times. As if that's not enough, real-time analytics also help improve physician-patient relations. This is because patients can be more engaged in their treatments if crucial health data is made available via mobile devices.

Mobile alerts can also help patients alert their doctors and nurses if there are any critical changes in their patients' status. "As AI technology advances, more data can be acquired than traditional medical institutions could ever accumulate," says Drexel University Information Science Professor Christopher C. Yang, Ph.D.

2. Streamlining Operations  

Artificial intelligence has already had a significant impact on healthcare practices around the world. Some areas that have benefited include patient history monitoring, translation of clinical details, and appointment scheduling. When care recommendations, appointment scheduling, and patient tracking are automated, medical operations are streamlined. 

AI has also allowed healthcare facilities to automate more time-consuming and meticulous activities. Intelligent radiology equipment, for example, can recognize important visual indicators, saving hours of intensive investigation. 

Yet another area that has been made easier is reviewing insurance. Artificial intelligence reduces the expenses associated with insurance claim denials. Health practitioners can use AI to discover and correct errors in claims before insurance companies deny reimbursement. This not only speeds up the claims process but also saves hospital staff time by allowing them to work through the denial and resubmit the claim.

By enabling speedier payouts and more accurate claims, hospitals can be more secure in their reimbursement timelines, allowing them to accept a wider range of insurance plans. Essentially,  AI enables hospitals to accept a wide range of insurance plans, which benefits both potential and current patients.

3. Time and Resource Savings 

Artificial intelligence (AI) speeds up procedures at medical facilities, allowing them to save valuable production hours. As vital medical processes are automated, medical professionals have more time to analyze patients and identify illnesses. 

Granted, time is money in any industry, so AI has the potential to save a lot of money. The healthcare industry is estimated to waste roughly $200 billion per year. Most of the wasteful costs involve administrative strains such as resolving accounts, reviewing, and filing. 

Another area where there is a need for improvement is the determination of medical necessities. Correctly establishing medical necessity takes hours of patient history and information evaluation. Physicians can use new natural language processing (NLP) and deep learning (DL) algorithms to help them analyze hospital cases and avoid denials. In this sense, medical personnel have more valuable productivity hours and resources.

4. Help With Research 

AI allows researchers to collect vast amounts of data from a variety of sources. As doctors access larger data and research variables, they can generate more accurate analyses on chronic diseases. Medical research organizations such as the Childhood Cancer Data Lab, for example, are developing technologies that will help medical practitioners better manage large data sets. 

In terms of real-time data, research can also benefit from the vast amount of data available, as long as it can be translated easily. Moreover, artificial intelligence has been used to examine and diagnose symptoms earlier in the course of an illness. Telehealth systems in particular are being used to track patient progress, recover important diagnosis data, and provide remote patient information to shared networks.

5. Reducing Physician Stress

According to recent research, more than half of primary care physicians are pressured by deadlines and other job factors. AI aids in the streamlining of procedures, the automation of activities, the quick sharing of data, and the organization of operations, all of which relieve medical personnel of the burden of juggling too many jobs.

"Patient load and the nature of the job are major contributors to physician burnout," Yang says. "However, because AI can help with more time-consuming tasks, such as explaining the diagnosis, medical practitioners may feel less stressed."

Wind Up

Because of the rising complexity and volume of data in healthcare, artificial intelligence (AI) will be used more frequently. From diagnosis to treatment and administrative duties, there are many medical operations that AI can take to the next level and in the process, enhance medical care for the good of all!