What is Artificial intelligence (AI) and how does it makes computers smarter? and what are the pro and cons of artificial intelligence in healthcare? The idea of creating the machines that mimic the human brain can be traced back to the earlier part of the twentieth century, to be precise, to the 1950s.
Those computer founding fathers Turing and McCarthy might were first to predict this. Information about AI, mentioned above is not something that appeared as a phenomenon in the recent past and today, at present it is involved in a set of human everyday activities and concerns, and this includes the sphere of healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry.
History:
The term “Artificial Intelligence” was first used in 1956 by computer scientist John McCarthy at a conference at Dartmouth College in the USA. The first approaches of AI development were based on symbolic AI and the utilization of logical systems, which intended to build machines capable of solving specific problems for example, translation between languages.
It regained prominence during the era of the 90s and 200s due to machine learning and data orientations. Neural networks and Deep learning brought the new towers in AI and these were improved progressively to the practicable solutions in the diverse fields. Today, AI has become one of the components of many technologies in the healthcare, finance, transportation industries, and entertainment industries in general, always seeking new challenges and possibilities.
PROs and Cons of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
How AI Helps Healthcare Workers?
1. Enhanced Diagnostics:
Machine learning along with deep learning is influencing the ways doctors diagnose diseases. These systems possess the capacity to hold a lot of data and are known to diagnose diseases early especially using medical images. For instance, in diagnosing cancer, it is easier and at times more accurate for an AI to spot the signs by going through X-Rays, MRI and CT scans than a doctor. As a result, individuals can start treatment at an earlier stage, and this is can be valuable in treating diseases and eradicating them before they progress.
2. Personalized Treatment Plans:
It can be used in developing medical solutions for the patient’s case that are unique. Thus, based on the data on a patient’s medical history, genetic predispositions, and other planned activities, AI recommends treatment. This kind of treatment plan ensures that a doctor to decide which treatment will be most effective to offer to the different patients and in the process avoiding side effects and ensuring maximum results.
3. Predictive Analytics of AI:
In health care, AI can foresee disease incidents, the number of patient admissions to hospitals, and risky patient classifications in developing one’s health-related condition or another. For instance, AI helps to analyze patient’s records and estimate the risk of developing disease in the patients. This helps the doctors to intervene to avoid such illnesses when they are still early stages.
4. Administrative Efficiency of AI:
AI can be applied in administrative functions in the health sector by, for instance, appointment making, records, and billing. When such processes are carried out by AI, healthcare workers are relieved of the tasks hence they have more time on attending to patients. This in a way makes the whole health care system effective.
5. Remote Monitoring of AI:
Smart clothing and AI solutions can track the patients’ condition using physical signs nonstop. These devices can also diagnose complications as soon as they happen, and notify the relevant practitioners of the same to doctors. The former is very useful with patients with chronic illnesses since it would enable early follow-up and management of the condition.
How AI helps the Pharmaceutical Industry?
1. Finding and Creating New Drugs using AI:
AI algorithms can look at biological data to find new drug possibilities more quickly and accurately than traditional methods. This helps speed up the development of new medicines, which is important for treating diseases and improving patient care.
2. Predicting Drug Interactions:
AI can learn patterns in the biological data to find potential drug candidates faster and more accurately than the non-AI methods. This fastens the delivery of novel therapeutic products, an overarching process that significantly helps in combating diseases and enhancing the lives of the patient.
3. Clinical Trials:
It can be helpful for the identification of right individuals for trials, to track their results and even analyze test results in real time. This makes the clinical trials more efficient and also improves the probabilities of coming across effective drug discovery for treating patients.
4. Supply Chain Optimization:
This helps to make ensure that medicine stock-outs do not occur at critical times and it helps bring down the overall cost of drugs as well as enhance patients’ access to vital medicines. It also plays a role in avoiding situations wherein a certain product is either out of stock, or there is an excess supply of the goods, which would mean losses on the side of the company.
Cons
Other Impacts of AI Technology in healthcare
1. Ethical and Legal Considerations
Their application in the spheres of healthcare and pharmaceutical industry has legal and ethical ramifications. For instance, the privacy of patients’ data and protection of such information will become a big issue. AI systems need data protection as part of their requirements in order not to be used in wrong ways. Further, there is the danger of the biased algorithms which can precipitate injustice on specific individuals data. AI-based solutions should remain transparent and non-discriminatory to receive the general population’s trust.
2. Job Displacement
The application of AI in healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry can increase efficiency, there is also the problem of the elimination of jobs. It can be stated that job insecurity may be highly probable as many administrative positions may be exposed to automation due to the presence of AI.
At the same time, AI leads to the emergence of new professions, such as the maintenance of an AI system and the management of large amounts of data. Professionals and paraprofessionals providing care directly to patients might have to become adaptable to complement technologies in AI systems.
3. Access to Healthcare
AI has the capability to enhance universal health care especially to the areas of the world that hardly gets any. Such telemedicine applications based on the AI technology can ensure the patients being connected with the healthcare service providers irrespective of the geographic locations. It is especially useful in the counties and other places with low-income earner whereby the people can rarely access quality healthcare services. With the help of the AI, one can prioritize patients and attend to the ones with emergency issues.
4. Mental Health Support
Rather, there are AI-enabled chatbots and virtual therapists to give a hand with mental health concerns. These tools can provide support in terms of fast help, assessment of the patient’s progress, and reporting of ways to deal with this. They are not a human therapist but such robot applications can be a great help for anyone who seeks help. For instance, AI chatbots can fill the support need of those who have anxiety or depression because they want to get help, but they can’t always go somewhere.
5. Research and Innovation
The usages of AI are now being embraced in the medical fields. The use of AI can also be viewed as advantageous by the fact that AI can analyze large amounts of data to get patterns that were otherwise not visible. These speeds up the rate for scientific development and results in therapies and inventions which in turn can reduce mortality rates. For instance, AI can assist in providing specific treatments based on disease genomics to the patients.
Conclusion:
Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing many aspects of healthcare and the pharmaceutical sector in various ways. It is used for diagnosing diseases, develops appropriate care plans, estimate health problems, and optimizes management operations. In the pharmaceutical industry, AI is used for accelerating the process of discovering new drugs, reflecting on the interaction of drugs and other drugs, helping with clinical trials, as well as designing the supply chain.
Know and learn more about AI in healthcare at: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/ai-healthcare