The application of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques in healthcare

Introduction

In recent years, the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques have been rapidly increasing in the field of healthcare. With AI and ML, health organizations are able to diagnose conditions faster, create more accurate patient profiles, and even automate certain processes such as drug development. In this blog post, we will delve deeper into how AI and machine learning are revolutionizing healthcare practices and explore the potential benefits they bring to the field. We'll also look at some of the potential risks posed by this technology and discuss ways to mitigate them.

How AI and machine learning are used in health and medical care

There are a number of ways in which AI and machine learning are being used in health and medical care. For example, AI is being used to develop new diagnostic tools and treatments, as well as to improve existing ones. The main focus of AI in healthcare remains towards a few diseases like cancer, neurological diseases and cardiovascular disease. These diseases contribute highly towards global death and it requires immediate diagnosis and treatment. This employs improved analysis procedures. In addition to the three main diseases, AI has also been applied to other diseases. An example of very recent application is the dectecting of diabetic retinopathy through photographs of the retina fundus by Gulshan et al.

Machine learning is also being used to create better predictive models for disease outbreak detection, drug development, and to create personalized medicine models that consider a person's individual genetic makeup when choosing treatments.

Techniques in the field of health and medical care are revolutionizing the way that physicians and other health care professionals diagnose and treat diseases. By providing them with the ability to quickly and accurately identify patterns in large data sets, AI and machine learning are helping doctors to make more informed decisions about patient care.

The use of AI and machine learning in health and medical care is still in its early stages, but the potential applications are vast. As these technologies continue to develop, they will likely have an increasingly significant impact on all aspects of health and medical care.

Some of the key benefits of using AI and machine learning in health and medical care include:

  • Improved accuracy: AI and machine learning algorithms can often outperform human experts when it comes to analyzing data sets for patterns. This can lead to improved accuracy in diagnosis and treatment decisions.

 

  • Faster decision-making: The speed at which AI and machine learning systems can process data means that they can often provide decision-makers with information much faster than a human expert could. This can be particularly important in emergency situations where time is of the essence.

 

  • Lower costs: The use of AI and machine learning can help to reduce the cost of healthcare by automating tasks that would traditionally be carried out by human staff, such as data entry. In addition, these technologies can also help to improve the efficiency of clinical trials, potentially leading to lower drug development costs.

 

  • One of the most common ways AI is being used in the medical field is to help identify diseases. This is often done by analyzing images, such as x-rays. AI can be trained to look for specific patterns that are associated with certain diseases. This can be helpful in early diseases diagnosis, when they are more treatable.

 

  • AI is also used to help with administrative tasks in hospitals and clinics. This includes scheduling appointments and managing patient records. AI can help free up staff time so they can focus on more important tasks.

The challenges of using AI and machine learning in health and medical care

The use of artificial intelligence in the field of health is fraught with challenges. One challenge is that AI is often opaque, making it difficult to understand how they arrive at their predictions. It is difficult for everyone to understand the mathematics behind the work of the algorithms, and therefore it is difficult to track the computational errors that may occur during data analysis and processing. This can be a problem when it comes to diagnosing patients, as physicians need to understand the reasoning behind the algorithm's diagnosis in order to make an informed decision about treatment.

Another challenge is that AI and machine learning systems require a large amount of data in order to be effective. This can be a problem in the healthcare setting, where data is often siloed and hard to obtain. Furthermore, healthcare data is often messy and unstructured, which makes it difficult for machine learning algorithms to learn from it. Finally, even if a machine learning system is able to learn from healthcare data, there is no guarantee that the system will generalize well to real-world settings. This means that there is a risk that AI and machine learning systems will not perform as well in the clinic as they do in controlled research environments. The matter may become more difficult in some Arab countries, where open data is rarely available, as most of them are still recorded manually in paper books and are not recorded in databases. The same is the case with private sector companies working in this field, they are not Prefers to share the data under the pretext of privacy as well as to maintain the size of its market share from competitors

The future of AI in health and medical care

In the future, AI will become an increasingly important tool for doctors and other health professionals. It will help them to make better decisions about diagnosis and treatment, to predict how diseases will progress and to identify new treatments. AI will also play a role in prevention, by helping us to identify those at risk of disease and create tailored interventions.

There are many potential applications of AI in health and medical care, but some of the most exciting are:

Diagnosis: AI can be used to analyse data from patients – such as their medical history, symptoms and test results – to make more accurate diagnoses. For example, IBM Watson’s Oncology Advisor is being used by doctors at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York to support their decision-making about cancer treatment.

Predicting disease progression: AI can be used to analyze data from patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes or heart disease to predict how their condition is likely to progress. This information can help doctors tailor their care plans accordingly. For example, Google DeepMind’s Health Unit is working on using machine learning algorithms to predict kidney injury 48 hours in advance.

The GCC Electronic Health Records Association (GEHRA) is the driving force behind the establishment of the National AI Summit, which takes place annually in partnership with IPC MENA to focus on AI and its future in the region. The summit gathers AI leaders and stakeholders from the public and private sector, as well as various stakeholders and organizations interested in the AI market.

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques have immense potential to revolutionize the field of healthcare. Already, AI-driven health technologies are providing greater accuracy in diagnostics and treatments, increasing efficiency in operations, optimizing patient care pathways and helping more people access quality healthcare services. With the advancement of these technologies, it is likely that AI will become an integral part of medical practice in the near future, helping improve outcomes for patients around the world.

Author:

Amr Eleraqi

An Egyptian Data Storyteller and Educator, Eleraqi was the driving force behind the launch of Arab Data Journalists’ Network. In 2012, he founded InfoTimes, which has won multiple awards including the 2018 GEN award for best small newsroom. He is the author of two books on data journalism, He also worked as a former consultant to a number of international institutions such as the World Bank, the UN Women and UNDP. Throughout the years, He trained thousands of journalists across the MENA region in collaboration with various prominent organizations such as BBC Media Action, Internews Europe, DW Academy, and Free Press Unlimited.