July 27, 2024

Where is AI Used in Healthcare?

AI is being utilized in various areas of healthcare to improve patient care, enable new discoveries and streamline processes. Here are some areas where AI is used in healthcare:

Drug Development

AI techniques are used in drug discovery to analyse large datasets, predict drug interactions, identify potential drug candidates, and optimize drug designs. AI can help streamline the process of developing new drugs and reduce the time and cost associated with traditional methods.

Instead of taking years and billions of dollars to develop drugs safe enough for the public, it’s thought that AI could predict how a drug in development will behave in the body without having to do so much lab work. In addition, AI can be used to crawl through biology related papers going years back that no one can or wants to comb meticulously through for research.

Diagnosing Disease

AI can assist in disease diagnosis by analysing patient data, symptoms, and medical records. Machine learning algorithms can learn patterns and identify subtle indicators that may be indicative of certain diseases, assisting healthcare professionals in making more accurate and timely diagnoses.

Tencent, the Chinese internet and tech company hopes to make a difference in the field of medical imaging with a system that is already assisting doctors in the diagnose of cancers. The patients undergo screening tests such as a mammogram or other diagnostic tests and AI is used to analyse the data. This could help avoid any missed diagnose by presenting the doctor with highly accurate results.

Robot-Assisted Surgery

AI and robotics will join forces in robot-assisted surgical systems, allowing surgeons to perform complex procedures with increased precision and control. AI algorithms can help guide surgical robots, analyse data, and enhance the outcome of surgery.

While AI in the operating room still has a long way to go, surgeons at NYU Langone Health medical centre is already using AI to speed up tumor genetic testing which normally takes weeks, to make a diagnosis in minutes. By doing this, patients can start treatment earlier than they would normally due to waiting for the test results, and in that time a tumor can grow and get worse.