Back in 1955, Artificial Intelligence (AI) was defined as “the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by people.” Although this seems like an old and simplistic interpretation, it is actually extremely relevant in today's social and health care.
As medical students and doctors, we are not explicitly taught about technologies such as AI which are now slowly being integrated into the healthcare system. However, these advents are worth knowing about as they are expected to play a crucial part in the future of medicine. In fact, it has already earned such a significant spot in the healthcare industry that the NHSX has set forth a long-term NHS plan to use AI to help doctors achieve their best practice and assist patients in managing their health.
When many of us hear the term 'AI', our minds automatically visualise robots moving around their artificial limbs to do the jobs of human beings in factories or at home, but AI encompasses so much more than that!
WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?
The foundation of AI is an artificial neural network which is a computing system made up of a collection of connected units also known as nodes. Not very dissimilar to the nervous systems of living organisms, nodes in AI act as artificial neurones receiving signals, processing them and sending them to the next node in their path, allowing machines to 'learn'.
Below, we have listed some of the most prominent applications of artificial intelligence in healthcare and medicine so far:
AI can be used to detect the most minute changes in radiological imaging that clinicians may accidentally overlook. Interestingly, a research study at Stanford University produced an algorithm that could detect pneumonia at particular locations with greater accuracy than the radiologists who partook the trial.
2. Disease Diagnosis:
AI has the potential to diagnose diseases with far more accuracy than human doctors will be able to. Medopad is a British healthtech company which has developed an application using machine learning to diagnose Parkinson's Disease in its very early stages, by mainly analysing patient's hand movements.
3. The wearable AI:
Wearable devices like smart watches or wristbands are now utilising AI to monitor the health of people and detect health changes in heart rate, quality of sleep and exercise levels. The Apple Watch is the most significant piece of technology that has achieved this.
The processing of genomes is a time-consuming procedure but AI comes in handy for speeding it up and interpreting genomes with greater precision. As a matter of fact, Genomics England has developed a platform to accumulate significant amounts of data from genome databases and healthcare professionals that AI requires. Researchers are then using these data along with machine learning to more rapidly identify specific genetic mutations that can be linked to certain cancers.
How many of these did you already know about?
by theaspiringMD.
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