The healthcare sector is considered the living god on earth. And during the last 2 years of the pandemic, it was proven again. How can we forget the time when the healthcare sector single-handedly took the load, to save millions of lives, themselves? Their hard work and continuous efforts were commendable.
However, it is not all well for the healthcare industry. Problems like lack of man force, and lack of availability of medicines in spite of having constant attempts of full capacity of medicine productions keep on making the news. Also, due to continuous closeness with the infected ones, many healthcare persons lost their lives. It feels disheartening to experience such an environment around us.
In this modern era of technology, healthcare sector has though seen a lot of technological advancements but with the time coming ahead it still has the opportunity to see more advancement.
See how this sector can leverage (or, is leveraging) the advantages that Artificial Intelligence brings to the table.
AI/ML and Healthcare – The Connection that will bring Benefits to all
In the last few years, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have seen a great rise and are one of the tech-future of many industries with their smart and efficient working pattern and easy-to-integrate capability in various sectors. One such sector amongst it is Healthcare where AI and ML is growing their legs with the latest trends and a great understanding of human health, better medical procedures, and detecting the accurate chronic diseases
Machine Learning has a wide range of healthcare applications to offer, ranging from simple accurate case management to accurate disease detection to an accurate operation of patient’s body with the use of robotic arms.
With the capacity of handling a large amount of data precisely, machine learning algorithms are very useful to help doctors with monitoring the patient’s health with past history to even suggest the proper medicine for each patient.
Let us see a few of the most useful applications of Machine Learning in the healthcare sector.
6 AI/ML Applications of Machine Learning in Healthcare
1) Handling Medical Data
Machine learning is revolutionizing the healthcare sector by incorporating cognitive technology to uncoil a large number of medical records and to do any power diagnosis. Machine learning aids in predicting a user’s purpose.
By incorporating machine learning into an organization’s workflow, it is possible to create a tailored user experience that allows the company to make better decisions and take better actions that benefit the patients. As a result, machine learning aids in the storage, collection, and reform of data.
2) Support in Medical Imaging and Diagnostics
AI is getting much better at understanding medical images and scans. This helps in identifying important features and insights from the films and scans prioritizing the critical cases needing some immediate attention for radiologists or cardiologists. This reduces the potential faults or human error in understanding health conditions and helps precise diagnosis in less time.
A huge amount of image data can be used for screening which can be stressful work. AI algorithms hold the capability to scan, read and identify this large amount of data in a quick time and also compare it with other studies to generate any unusual change or unseen pattern for each patient. This helps professionals to analyze critical information quickly.
3) Reduce the cost of new medicines under development
For the development of any new medicine, a lot of research is needed and hard work is needed to understand the molecular structure of any new disease. Thanks to supercomputers which are very useful in understanding such research, molecular structure from the stored database to predict which medicinal drug can be useful for a particular disease.
With the help of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), a medicinal algorithm named AtomNet was developed. This algorithm predicts the binding of small molecules to proteins after rigorous calculations. It analyzes data prepared by reading thousands of protein structures and millions of experimental measurements for this purpose.
This system also enabled the use of CNN to detect accurate and effective drugs from the database, reducing the cost of medicinal drug development. This method was very successful while the development of the Ebola virus drug in 2015.
4) Providing Medical Assistance with accurately prescribed medicines
Recently medical chatbots are having a lot of demand for providing medical assistance to needy ones in emergency and also for those who are not easily reachable. Medical chatbots use the several ml algorithms depending on the capability and use. Basic chatbots which use Natural Language Processing are useful for detecting the disease based on symptoms told to them and prescribing the accurate medicines for the disease.
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Advanced medical chatbots also come with the feature of uploading medical reports, live 24×7 doctor consultations, appointment booking for tests, and also a reminder function for the patients to remind them of the tests to be carried out on time. Such chatbots also analyze medical reports and find out the important information about the patient and send the data to the concerned doctor which helps the doctor to attend to the patients in the early stage of disease and also with all important conditions in front of him from the past as well.
5) Machine Learning in Accurate Decision making
It is very tough to make any decision during emergencies but AI has also shown its capability in decision-making power during any medical emergency. One of the best examples of the decision-making capability of AI is Surgical Robots that are capable of reducing errors during critical surgeries and helping surgeons with quick action during an emergency. Surgical Robots have been shown in several scenarios where critical surgeries have been performed very smoothly very minimal mortality rate. They are beneficial in complex surgeries with better accuracy than any others.
6) Detecting Early stage Diseases (as Critical as Cancer)
With the help of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, smart wearable devices have been developed which can be attached to the human body and analyze the human body condition very accurately reducing the chances of mortality with the detection of diseases at an early stage.
One such example is a smartwatch with features to analyze the heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen level and detect the human condition to warn of a possible cardiac arrest or reduction of blood pressure or oxygen level. Such devices also have features of sleep hours calculation, activity control, breath control, water alarm, and many more which can be recorded 24×7.
Recently AI is being developed for the most critical disease of Cancer Detection with its severity and accurate diagnosis which will be useful in reducing the Mortality rate from Cancer. The Deep Learning algorithms are working with large image datasets to understand and detection of possible cancer cells warning the patients about the severity of it and accurate diagnostics. Also, Machine Learning algorithms are being used to classify the accurate cancer type with the data provided or by analyzing the patient condition and medical reports.
The Final Word
Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning have many more applications to offer in the Healthcare sector and with the use of these technologies healthcare sector can be supported by various hands in less to no time.
With the advancements in Artificial Intelligence techniques and machine learning modeling, soon AI will become the very close friend of Doctors helping them in almost all aspects of the medical sector allowing them to do new research for the betterment of mankind.