Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be a solution to anything – it’s time to put this myth to an end. While it is true that AI is offering revolutionary advances in different industries, it is not a solution to every problem. In order to maximize the potential of AI, enterprises must start to realize this fact.
AI is an information-hungry technology. It is what makes the use of AI challenges. However, this limitation also poses a promise that once this challenge is addressed, the use of AI will continue breaking barriers.
As AI technology is still developing, six AI healthcare experts (Joe Petro of Nuance Communications; Ken Kleinberg of Point-of-Care Partners; Sanjeev Kumar of Healthcare Management Systems; Michael Neff of Recondo Technology; Dr. Elizabeth Marshall of Linguamatics and Dr. Ruben Amarasingham of Pieces Technology) share some of their suggested ways to maximize the use of AI in the healthcare industry.
Apply AI to the Right Problem
The healthcare industry can optimize the use of AI if they understand what AI is capable of and if they apply it to the right issue. They must ask these questions first: what the problem is, and if AI can help solve this problem or not so, they would know if AI can help provide a solution.
Is the Problem Fit for an AI Solution?
In order for AI to give accurate results, the problem must have a clear pattern, it must be repetitive, it should not differ widely, and it should be fundamentally deterministic. It is the reason why AI is currently used only for problems that are narrowly defined. The neural nets need to find a repeating and consistent pattern for it to yield accurate results.
One of the challenges, though, is that there are instances when there is not enough training data to establish these patterns. For example, when a radiologist reads an image, they don’t indicate all the data leading to an incomplete data set that will be fed to the AI technology.
Train People to Use the Technology
You should train your people to use technology and be comfortable with it. It is essential to invest time to prepare the members of the organization on how to make good use of the technology.
If your people are not knowledgeable about it, technology will only be wasted. They will have no confidence to use it, and it can bring about a negative impact on your patients. You must let your members appreciate the use of AI in making their work more efficient.
Protect Patient’s Data
Medical data is susceptible. There are laws in place to protect them. Therefore, healthcare providers must be very cautious in handling it. They must choose to partner with AI providing companies that will respect your patient’s data and will not use it beyond what is stipulated in the contract.
There have been horror stories involving data and information leaks. The most significant negative impact would be the loss of your patient’s trust and confidence.
Understand How AI Can Be Inserted in the Work Process
The healthcare industry focuses on narrow or weak AI, which means using software or algorithms to provide solutions to specific problems like reading a chest X-ray, interpreting a skin wound, etc.
In order to optimize AI, healthcare providers must identify where AI technology can be of help in streamlining the work. If it does not satisfy this requirement, then it only means that AI does not fit in the workflow, it is not optimized, or it’s not applicable.
There is still more to be done to harness the potential of Artificial Intelligence. The different limitations in the use of AI in the healthcare industry are just birth pains. It is expected that in the future, AI will be more developed and will be able to contribute efficiently to the healthcare industry. As of the moment, it would be best to devise ways to optimize the use of AI to guarantee a return of investment.