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What is driving AI growth in healthcare?
OVERVIEW
AI is growing exponential in the healthcare industry due to many reasons. Some benefits currently aiding in this growth include storing healthcare data, Reducing Workload and increasing quality of care, the demand for precision medicine, a shortage of healthcare workers and a reduction on increased healthcare costs.
STORING HEALTHCARE DATA
Software programs enhanced with AI offer the ability to store specified data more effectively. There is an increasing data volume and an exponentially increasing need to effectively store and manage healthcare data. Innovative technologies programmed to handle data related to patients, legal information, and financial reports will be optimized and further accelerate business penetration. This ROI results from less employment and a reduced paper trail.
AI can also benefit the overload of healthcare data by more adequately screening for fraudulent information. Another application involves storing a database of medical conditions for users (patients) to compare their symptoms.
According to data, 12 million Americans are misdiagnosed in outpatient clinics each year, and with proper AI screening costs of multiple visits and excess medication can be drastically reduced.
REDUCED WORKLOAD AND INCREASED QUALITY OF CARE
AI will drastically reduce both the physical workload and data entry workloads. A fair amount of administrative work is generated each time a patient visits a healthcare facility. Bots can be assigned to handle the repetitive paperwork, room assignment and can answer basic questions. This saves resources and allocates humans to more demanding jobs.
Since AI needs no rest and cannot be distracted or overloaded with information, assigning these systems to overnight shifts and multiple assignments is no problem. These systems can also be integrated with multiple language optimizations, meaning conversing with foreign patients is simple.
DEMAND FOR PRECISION MEDICINE
One of the more exciting components of introduced AI into healthcare involves the implementation of robotics. These systems can perform semi-automated surgical tasks with increasing efficiency. Surgical robots will comprise the highest contribution to the 21% increase 5-year CAGR by 2021.
Surgery is transitioning to a more digital task, and top companies such as Google are opting in to support these advancements. AI compliments surgeons by screening for imperfections not easily detectable by a screen on the soft tissue level.
SHORTAGE OF HEALTH CARE WORKFORCE
By 2020 there will be 1.2 million vacancies for nurses and with the population rising and life expectancy increasing there simply aren’t enough hands to keep up. AI systems can continually handle multiple tasks and as mentioned above, can complete these tasks more efficiently.
The costs saved by healthcare facilities no longer responsible for as many salaries will also be put towards creating more infrastructure for the increasing patient population. Bots may even be assigned to specific patients, leaving human nurses with more time to carry out other tasks.
REDUCING INCREASED HEALTHCARE COSTS
Global expenditures on health care increased from 9.0% to 9.9% of total GDP between 2000 and 2014. The highest expenditure in U.S. history was experienced in 2015 and reached 17.8% of Total GDP. All of this in addition to the fact that the world’s population aged 60 and above will increase 56% by 2030 creates a tremendous strain on the current healthcare system.
The healthcare industry is expected to save $45 billion in annual cost savings by 2025 thanks to the help of AI. Though the cost to initially implement these systems is high, the major benefit of AI is self-learning capabilities and longevity, meaning once these systems are in place they can be utilized practically indefinitely.
CONCLUSION
AI within the healthcare industry is growing rapidly due to factors such as storing healthcare data, reducing workloads and demands for precision medicine. While AI continues to advance the possibilities are seemingly endless, but the projected results are already staggering.