Adoption of AI in Healthcare Services for Sustainable Development
Technology & Telecom
20 Jan 2016
By Makreo Research and Consulting
Adoption of AI in Healthcare Services for Sustainable Development
Is it wise to reduce human intervention and rely upon results generated out of predefined algorithms? This is a significant factor when it comes to technology vs. healthcare. By eliminating human factor aren’t we eliminating emotional factor or out of box decision making in certain situations?
This subject is always debatable, amidst all the challenges it is crucial to understand how to wisely adopt technology to generate best results without overlooking limitations. It is true that in last few decades Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have become predominant factors and further offer huge scope of development.
Artificial Intelligence is setting up new milestones in the healthcare industry and revolutionising Healthcare Research, Medical Care and other Services
AI can deal with the prevailing issues hospitals commonly encounter, such as deficit of nursing staff, manual errors in record keeping, and monotonous task of designing the treatment for common diseases, logistics management and more. On top of all prevailing challenges in healthcare industry the most prominent factor is lack of nursing staff.
According to a WHO report, nursing staff accounts for 50% of the global health workforce whereas at present there is a huge shortage of Nursing staff and Midwives. Countries such as South East Asia and Africa have recorded high shortage of the same and to cope up with this situation WHO has estimated there will be requirement of additional 9 million nurses and midwives by 2030.
AI is bringing paradigm shift in the healthcare sector by developing Virtual Nurses, to monitor patient health and monitoring 4-5 facilities having 20-30 patients altogether instead of 5-6 patients at a single facility as a bed side nurse.
Another noticeable factor is medical errors that occurs in result of poor data management because in healthcare industry digital information and records are swelling up on daily basis and it is estimated that volume of data will grow at the rate of 45-48% annually. Therefore, there is a dire need of Amplified Intelligence to maintain patient’s records and manage other healthcare information.
Though Artificial Intelligence is still in infancy stage in healthcare but its core strength to manage big data makes it perfect fit for the industry to reduce the time & efforts and eliminate human errors. Apart from managing data AI has the ability to perform with human intellect to solve the problems and errors.
According to Makreo Research and Consulting team, in diagnostics also it has been found that AI is almost 10%-12% more capable of producing accurate results in almost half of the time in place of a pathologist. Whereas it has also been proven by scientist that there are pitfalls in the technology which we can’t be ignored and can only be controlled with the intervention of a pathologist. Thus, importance of laboratory staff will be intact whereas combination of human and Artificial Intelligence will produce more accurate results.
It is advisable that in case of healthcare, technology should not replace human but to evolve by reducing efforts and allowing more time in supervision. By 2030, AI and Machine Learning will transform healthcare system considering the fact that rising population is directly proportionate to complex data management and there is huge scope of AI & Machine Learning application in the healthcare system which is untapped and can bring revolutionary changes in the system.