There remains an ingrained fear of artificial intelligence (AI) and the impact it will have on our lives. Much of this fear revolves around the prospect of technology making our jobs obsolete. In healthcare, there is a high degree of sensitivity towards the application of any kind of technology, yet, the potential of technologies such as AI in healthcare is huge, if we can get it right.
The current healthcare system
We know the current healthcare system is under pressure, this is widely documented. A combination of budget cuts, Brexit, and the pandemic have led to an increased strain on healthcare services and consequently longer patient wait times.
Whilst technologies including AI, can be part of the solution, it is certainly not the answer to the complex and fragmented challenges the healthcare industry faces. Rather, using technology in harmony with skilled clinicians can simplify healthcare and improve lives.
Applying AI today
Telehealth is an important tool, one that must be more widely used, to help alleviate the stress placed on the existing healthcare system, share the burden of care, and make the entire delivery of healthcare more accessible.
Clinical augmentation is the synergy of technology and human expertise: utilising the knowledge and experience of clinicians enhances diagnostics, and vice versa. Computer algorithms are only as good as the data they receive, and so AI requires doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to provide their expertise to create a more useful platform.
Similarly, AI diagnostics provide invaluable data that can aid clinicians in their patient interactions, making their diagnostic and treatment courses more accurate and efficient. Some diagnostic tools are already on the market, and more are on the way.
These diagnostic tools can analyse video and audio for everything from heart arrhythmias to patient sentiment. The purpose of AI, in this regard, is to ultimately enhance healthcare providers, so that they are more easily able to care for their patients, in a way that is more personalised and therefore better tailored to the individual.
Another application of AI that is being used now is orchestrated systems. This simple area of telehealth uses machine learning (ML) to direct patients to the correct care pathway. By ensuring patients get the right level of treatment at the right time, it is crucial to reduce wait times and offer alternative pathways, rather than arranging a GP appointment by default.
To do so at scale will help to remove the missteps and deadends that can be both dangerous and frustrating for patients in their healthcare journey. As such, AI simultaneously cuts out the middleman and frees up GPs by streamlining the process that patients will have to follow.
The undervalued use of AI
Perhaps one of the most underdeveloped aspects of AI, one that ought to be quickly remedied, is governance. With everything so interconnected digitally, we need to work to better protect data. There has been an ongoing debate involving security versus privacy; what do we prioritise and how? Is it possible to safeguard people and information, whilst not undermining their confidentiality? The short answer is: yes.
Clinical safety and protecting patients’ data is crucial as it is key to being able to sustain a responsible telehealth platform. AI can be used to simplify and automate the redaction of sensitive information in line with data protection regulations, the process of collecting patient consent, and determining data provenance.
This might not sound as interesting or as “cool” as diagnostic tools, or even the thought of robot doctors. However, the reality is that all innovation in healthcare is reliant on clean data and the automation of governance through AI can dramatically speed up the innovation process, by baking governance into the process itself.
Humanity prevails
Although we need all three branches of AI – clinical augmentation, orchestrated systems, and governance – to work together, clinical professions are still, and will continue to be, paramount. Whilst we cannot code humanity, nor would we want to, there are aspects of our health and that of our loved ones that can be digitised. It is not the entire replacement of GPs and other healthcare professionals we are calling for as we move towards telehealth.
Rather, the ongoing development of AI is needed to continue building up towards an increased efficiency in both the speed and accuracy of care delivered. If we can get it right, the potential impact on the healthcare industry, and the patient experience and outcomes will be unparalleled.
