🤖 AI in Healthcare

NP #006

Neon Pulse Team
June 18, 2023

Good morning and welcome to the latest edition of neonpulse!

Today we’re talking all about AI in healthcare, because that’s one of the many fields in which AI will make an impact that will change many lives.

AI in Healthcare

AI is undeniably a life changing technology that has already, and will continue to revolutionize the world. With its ability to analyze vast amounts of data and detect patterns, AI has the potential to make a significant impact in the healthcare industry. As we explore the immense possibilities AI brings, one can’t help but wonder: could AI also be a lifesaving technology?

Some have been saying it for a long time: in 2016, Vinod Khosla, a renowned tech and venture capital visionary, predicted in a paper titled “20-Percent Doctor Included & Dr. Algorithm: Speculations and Musings of a Technology Optimist" that healthcare would eventually incorporate automation.

Khosla believed that within a few decades, automated systems could replace up to 80% of standard work performed by physicians or healthcare workers.

But how exactly might AI change healthcare? Well, there are many ways it could make an impact:

Diagnosis and screening - AI can analyze large data sets to detect and diagnose diseases earlier, improving patient outcomes.
Personalized medicine - Generative AI algorithms can analyze medical data to customize treatment plans and follow-up care, leading to better outcomes and reduced healthcare costs.
Drug discovery - AI algorithms can analyze clinical trial data to identify potential drug targets and predict effective compounds, accelerating the development process.
Ability to interpret unstructured medical data - Generative AI can analyze and convert unstructured medical data into a structured format for comprehensive insights.
Medical robots - AI-driven robots can assist in surgical operations and interpret health conditions based on medical data, improving surgical procedures.
… and more.

In fact, the revolution has already begun.

Minnesota academic medical center Mayo Clinic is using Google Cloud's Enterprise Search on Generative AI App Builder to create chatbots that can efficiently review large amounts of internal healthcare data. This technology enables healthcare professionals to quickly interpret various patient data, regardless of its format or storage location.

Erasmus MC in the Netherlands is opening the world's first ethics lab for AI in healthcare to ensure safe implementation of artificial intelligence in patient care. The lab brings together healthcare professionals, data scientists and ethicists to address concerns like whether doctors would discontinue treatment based on AI recommendations.

A recent study by the University of California, San Francisco found that AI models analyzing mammogram features can provide more accurate predictions for potential breast cancer. The AI models outperformed traditional risk assessments in identifying patients most likely to develop breast cancer within a year of their mammogram, capturing a higher percentage of cancer cases.

There's no doubt about it, the AI revolution in healthcare is very real, and its potential to enhance healthcare and save lives is promising.