6 Ways AI and Robotics Are Transforming Healthcare
Perhaps more than any other industry, even the slightest mistake or inaccuracy in healthcare can cost lives, money and time. A Medliminal Healthcare Solutions study found that 80% of US medical billings contain at least minor errors — creating unnecessary annual health care spending of $68 billion. Intelligent automation (IA) can support the work of humans when it comes to problem-solving and preventing oversight, delivering massive cost savings to medical organizations and hospitals.
It’s not to say that automation does not come without the caution of mismanagement as machines are also prone to error. However, there’s plenty of headway pointing to
governments, financial institutions, tech companies, and healthcare providers investing and testing out Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered tools and solutions.
Here are six AI and IA advances in healthcare driving outcomes and powering shifts in innovation.
1. Innovation and tech powerhouses are using AI and IA to predict disease outbreaks and death times.
Google now plays a part in every aspect of all 1.17 billion of its users’ digital lives. Now, the company’s Medical Brain team uses AI to predict hospital patients’ likelihood of death. Google’s algorithm, which uses huge data sets, has shown to be over 90% accurate so far. In one case study, the algorithm gave a woman with metastatic breast cancer a 19.9% chance of fatality by analyzing 175,639 data points from across her medical records. Within two weeks, the patient had died.
Prognos is a New York-based startup that uses AI to detect diseases before they happen, using a registry of fifteen billion medical records. It tracks 180 million people in fifty different areas like asthma, lung cancer and others. Data scientists and clinicians analyze clinical lab and diagnostics results to make predictions about an individual’s risk for disease, identifying anyone from high-risk patients to the newly diagnosed, to those who are not responding to care.
2. AI and IA will enhance diagnosis, process and security
Increasingly, AI and IA are becoming a pivotal part of healthcare. As healthcare threats increase in number and severity, AI and IA can be employed to recognize unusual behaviors on a network, watch for fraud threats and predict malware infections based on previously identified characteristics, among other security measures.
The technology is also helping patients take better control of their own care, with tools that include chatbots for quick help with minor ailments, and wearable devices such as smart shirts that can record health data and produce predictive capacities. It can also be used to develop algorithms that help oncologists offer deep insights on biopsy reads.
3. Digital workers can be rotated across a range of tasks across the hospital
IA can be deployed into various operations, including planning for bed rotations, food and capacity. It also assists with ensuring regulatory compliance is met, collecting all of the information and completing all of the steps necessary for compliance reviews.
When a workforce is disjointed, information flows and knowledge sharing processes are disrupted, digital connectivity and automation platforms can ensure workers obtain critical information when they need it most. Digital workers can help with crisis management, incident reporting and managing risk.
4. IA will continue to grow as payers and solution providers work on implementing an enterprise AI strategy
The pandemic revealed healthcare organizations’ need for more advanced technology, especially artificial intelligence and intelligent automation, to fight COVID-19 and improve operations in general. Both providers and payers that had some of these technologies in place could respond with more agility to 2020’s demands, and leaders now want to invest in solutions that make their operations more efficient and cost-effective.
Health system leaders also looked to implement their strategies in 2021, investigating ways and partners to bring proven AI and automation solutions to their hospitals. Integration of multiple third-party systems for healthcare is intricate and hard to operate, making it inefficient and error-prone when processing data manually.
Laiye’s work in digitally transforming healthcare is through understanding and sifting data needed for intelligent decision-making. Laiye is dedicated to helping hospitals and healthcare organizations ensure the stable and accurate operation of business processes, to be ready for the fight against future pathogens and pandemics, and for sustaining global expansion in a challenging international business climate.
5. Healthcare AI and IA investments are bringing new companies and products to market
Investors worldwide have noted the need for more artificial intelligence in healthcare, and revenue growth has followed. Healthcare AI funding has seen record growth as demand has exploded. Globally, healthcare AI companies raised $2.5 billion in Q1 of 2021, setting a record.
These dollars are being used to develop innovative solutions for hospitals and patients, from operational automation to machine learning platforms that accelerate drug R&D.
6. Health systems are choosing Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS) to deliver fast ROI
Even as new solutions hit the market, healthcare leaders need intelligent automation that works today to address some of their most pressing operational problems. A key success factor quickly emerging is choosing a healthcare-specific Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS) model. AIaaS involves contracting with a partner that builds, delivers, monitors, and supports the automation, enabling a health system to scale AI throughout the enterprise effectively.
The Sage Growth report found that healthcare organizations familiar with automation and those with automation solutions running for more than a year are more likely to prefer AIaaS. As a partner with proven healthcare solutions, Laiye can more rapidly deploy automation, helping hospitals realize positive ROI more quickly and scale effectively without reinventing the wheel for every application.
Working together to achieve innovation and human-centered solutions, AI and IA, undoubtedly, will play a significant role in organizations in the future by freeing workers from lengthy and tedious data input.
A more automated healthcare approach empowers clinicians and healthcare workers to better deliver more accessible patient care in a manner that reduces cost and favors operational efficacy. The shift will transform the healthcare landscape forever to be digitally focused and better built for improvement and innovation.
