AI HEALTHCARE
A survey of over 23,000 adults across 31 countries highlighted long waiting times and difficulty accessing treatment as the biggest healthcare issues.
Other concerns included staff shortages, high treatment costs, lack of focus on prevention, and challenges linked to ageing populations.
With these problems growing, AI is being seen as a powerful solution.
AI is being used in several areas to make healthcare more efficient and effective.
Such as:
Medical Imaging: AI tools can quickly review scans like MRIs and X-rays, giving accurate results faster than humans. This saves time and improves patient care. The market for AI in medical imaging is expected to grow beyond $840 million by 2030.
Personalised Medicine: AI can analyse genetic and medical data to suggest treatments tailored to individual patients. This moves healthcare away from a one-size-fits-all approach.
Telemedicine: AI helps improve remote healthcare, making it easier to diagnose and monitor patients from a distance. From video consultations to telesurgery, the potential is enormous.
Drug Discovery: Generative AI speeds up drug development while lowering costs. Where traditional methods are slow and expensive, AI can cut costs by 50% and save more than a year in development time.
Companies such as Arterys and Google Health are developing AI tools for better diagnostics.
NVIDIA, a leader in graphics processing, provides the hardware driving much of AI’s progress.
Its newest chip, the GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip, delivers faster and cheaper AI performance for healthcare.
While AI shows promise, two main concerns stand out:
Data privacy: AI relies on large amounts of patient data, which hackers can target. In the US alone, nearly 250 healthcare data breaches were reported by April 2024.
Public trust: Many people feel uneasy about AI making critical healthcare decisions. Concerns include possible biases and a lack of transparency in AI systems work.
Would you trust the bot?
AI’s role in healthcare will grow as ethical and regulatory measures improve.
The World Health Organisation has released guidelines to help governments navigate the use of AI in healthcare, while HIPAA rules aim to protect patient data in the US.
AI has huge potential to improve healthcare, but it must overcome challenges around trust and data security to truly succeed.
Imagine getting a diagnosis faster than your Uber Eats order.