Published on 18 September 2024
Artificial intelligence in healthcare shows promise in transforming the way the services are rendered to the patients . According to McKinsey, artificial intelligence (AI) is a machine’s ability to perform the cognitive functions we usually associate with human minds. These include reasoning, decision making, or problem solving. A newer form of AI is generative AI, which can create original content in forms such as text, images or even videos based on the data that has been used to train it.
To illustrate how AI can simplify the work for a physician, we will consider a scenario which does not use AI, and will see the changes when AI is introduced into the workflow.
Before AI
Dr. Jane is a primary care physician who works at a medical group practice in Houston, Texas. She reaches the clinic at 7:15 am in the morning and logs in to the clinic’s Electronic Health Record (EHR) system, which is not the best, but gets the job done. She has a list of 18 patients to see today, and it’s going to be a long day. She begins with her first patient, Mrs. Morris, who has come in for a regular check for her hypertension. Dr Jane talks to her, examines her and recommends some changes in her medication. After the appointment, Dr. Jane dictates notes into a recorder, which will later be transcribed and uploaded to the electronic health records (EHR). She also sends prescription refills for Mrs. Morris electronically to the pharmacy. She instructs her nurse practitioner to follow up with Mrs. Morris after a week over the phone, and if her blood pressure is normal, she can revisit the clinic after three months.
A similar process is repeated for the next 17 patients. At the end of her day, Dr Jane is exhausted. She still must go through the latest guidelines for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, which she knows have been recently released, but is just too exhausted. She wishes she had more help, something to make her work more efficient, and spend more time interacting with her patients rather than with the computer or the recorder.
With AI
Now consider the same scenario but this time, Dr Jane has an AI assistant on her phone. When she enters the clinic, the AI assistant, which has access to the patient records and the appointment schedule, gives Dr Jane a summary of her schedule for the day. It also summarizes the health details of Mrs. Morris, who is the first patient of the day. As a result, Dr Jane is well prepared to see her. When Mrs. Morris enters the clinic, Dr Jane informs her that her phone will be listening to the conversation to prepare a transcript of the visit. Mrs. Morris is okay with it. At the end of the visit, Dr Jane quickly glances at her phone. The transcription is ready. She makes some minor changes and approves the entry, following which the details of the visit are immediately integrated with Mrs. Morris’s EHR. The AI assistant also sends automated messages to the pharmacy to arrange for medication refills and to the nurse practitioner regarding a follow up call to Mrs. Morris.
Dr Jane finds that the next 17 patient visits pass like a breeze. When she has a doubt, the AI assistant summaries the latest treatment guidelines and suggests the course of action for the patients. At the end of the day, Dr Jane still feels relaxed, and satisfied with her interactions with her patients.
AI and Medicine – The Connection
How does such an AI assistant understand medicine? Such applications are built on AI platforms which have “learnt” from vast amounts of data generated from multiple sources such as EHRs, diagnostic test results, medical literature, and more. The platforms can not only comprehend and analyze such information but can also “generate” new information – which is what “Generative AI” is all about.
Concerns have been raised about the trustworthiness, patient privacy and ethical implications of using artificial intelligence in healthcare. These must be addressed before adopting any AI tool to ensure that they are a benefit rather than a liability in the healthcare space.
Reference:
https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-ai
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