Artificial intelligence has become a crucial aspect of our daily lives, especially after the rise of generative AI LLMs. People ask AI everything about their daily lives, from selecting music to getting tips for better healthcare routines. Speaking of healthcare, AI has become a game-changing technology for the medical sector. There are more than 600 medical devices in the market today that incorporate AI as their foundational technology. The director of Health Services & Research for Cedars-Sinao, Brennan Speigel, understands the role of AI for medicine, stating, “Today’s AI is revolutionizing the way we approach diagnostics, treatment and patient management.”
While AI is shaping medicine and healthcare significantly, there is a crucial need of learning the technology for better implementation. This blog will guide you about all the important aspects of AI in medicine and healthcare, highlighting key use cases that are transforming the future of the medical sector.
How AI Transforms the Medicine Industry – Key Uses
AI in medicine is changing the whole industry practice, and it’s no longer something new; it is presently being used in a wide range of applications. AI brings a new layer of accuracy and effectiveness in medicine and discovery. It significantly improves the R&D phases of medicine from discovery to testing and public supply. The most common ways professionals are using AI in medicine are for clinical testing, patient treatment, and diagnostics to make informed decisions. AI offers a quick dictionary to healthcare experts that minimizes the need for a human assistant. Moreover, AI works way faster in processing raw data related to patients, drugs, and laboratory reports. AI has diverse applications in the medical sector. Here are 6 key uses for AI in the medicine industry.
Specialized Treatment
Artificial intelligence can help in personalization and support doctors with virtual assistants. This feature significantly helps in specialized treatments and remote consultations, as AI models can train on doctors’ preferences. AI can offer patients and healthcare experts recommendations related to their symptoms. One big plus of incorporating AI with healthcare solutions is that it reduces the time consumed by various operations, such as patient diagnoses and routine checkups. The doctors don’t have to repeat the information for a new person each time, as an AI-powered virtual assistant automatically lists the key points based on the patient’s medical history and personal preferences.
Effective Formulation
Drug formulation is a key aspect of AI in research and development departments of the medical sector. The way each drug or medicine is formulated depends on the costly cycle of drug development from discovery to chemicals and their composition. AI helps reduce costs and increase formulation effectiveness by finding the optimal drug combinations. AI in medicine can overcome real-life challenges in the aspect of drug availability and large-scale production. The departments of life sciences are already incorporating AI solutions to enhance the drug formulation cycles, reducing cost and time for diverse drug types.
Medical Imagery Enhancements
The medical industry focuses heavily on imaging and visualization, which helps them in identifying diseases and other essential information about a report or test result. AI in medicine is already a prominent player in medical imaging. Research shows that artificial intelligence-powered neural networks work similarly to human radiologists. For instance, AI can detect and analyze medical imagery to detect diseases such as breast cancer and others. Moreover, AI can help in the creation of imagery, and in large numbers that can help experts to better identify patients’ key characteristics, as images represent accurate history, and symptom summary with previous medication.
New Drug Discovery
Formulation and discovery are different phases of drug development. AI can help in both areas as it has the ability to analyze information and derive valuable insights from it. AI in medicine shortens the complex process of the drug discovery journey. One key example of expedited drug discovery with AI is the life-saving COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer, one of the key scientific authorities, recognizes the importance of AI in developing the vaccine. It proved to be a key tool in data cleaning and clinical trials of the vaccine. According to the head of Data Monitoring and Management at Pfizer, Demetris Zambas, AI saved Pfizer an entire month of hard work by intelligently maintaining data quality while ensuring minimal to no discrepancies left behind.
Clinical Testing
Before making any public launch of a medicine or medical equipment, such as machines, tools, and healthcare devices, there is an extensive phase of clinical testing. This phase is crucial for patients as well as medical healthcare providers, which is why a lot of time is spent on clinical testing. Especially, in the process of assigning medical codes to match patient records to update databases for future use. AI in medicine assists significantly in this regard by speeding up the process and intelligently sorting data. According to IBM’s health science clients, AI can reduce the time spent on clinical code assigning by 70% with the help of artificial intelligence solutions.
Medical Training
Medicine is a complete discipline of study that requires skills and intelligence for a person to become a competent professional. However, the way of learning is changing as AI tools are being integrated into the leading programs worldwide. AI in medicine can help in effective as well as fast learning, reducing the steep path with intelligent guides. AI in education can benefit people at three levels. Firstly, it offers a comprehensive ocean of information to students for picking up the latest information and discoveries. Secondly, it can help the instructors to teach medicine better, enabling them to reduce workload significantly and bring innovation into their classrooms. Thirdly, AI can help at the institutional level, taking the burden of administering problems across schools.
Conclusion
AI has become a prominent tool in every sector worldwide, and the medical industry is no different. It is creating major transformations across the medicine development and patient treatment cycles, enhancing each process while reducing time and resource consumption. In a nutshell, AI has become a key tool for doctors and professionals in every health aspect. The COVID-19 vaccine is a key example of its importance in life-saving drug discoveries. With future advancements in technology, AI will redefine disease diagnoses by empowering patients to understand their symptoms and elaborate on their conditions to the experts in a better way.
