Humans always seek advancement and improvement in life. People do this by integrating technologies into their daily routines to complete tasks in hopes of saving time and increasing efficiency. Artificial intelligence (AI) is one form of these technologies that can help, especially in medical imaging and healthcare.
The primary benefit of using AI in medical imaging is disease detection. Over the past decade, doctors have begun to use AI to detect various diseases including cancer. According to a study done by researchers at NYU, an AI tool increased the radiologist’s ability to accurately identify breast cancer by 37 percent. The tool was tested on over forty-four thousand ultrasound images. When conducting a breast cancer screening, an ultrasound is not the typical tool used. However, it is the cheaper alternative, and with the help of AI, it has also become 37% more efficient. Not only did the AI tool increase the chances of detection and save money, but it also helped to decrease strain on the body by transforming an easy imaging technique into a vital tool for cancer detection. The study stated that the AI “reduced the number of tissue samples and biopsies necessary to confirm tumors by 27 percent” (McNemar). In disease unrelated to cancer, AI has also proven to increase detection rates. According to a study done at the John Hopkins Center for Health Services and Outcomes Research, AI has been proven effective in the detection of Sepsis, a potentially life-threatening condition caused when the body damages its own tissues due to infection. Participating doctors used AI to help more than half a million patients, and of the 82% of sepsis cases, 42% were identified by the AI system. In life-threatening sepsis cases, the AI model identified the condition six hours earlier than in the control group (Pepic). There are many more cases like these where AI has proven to aid doctors in disease detection.
Another benefit to the use of AI in healthcare is its ability to spot trends in large data. Artificial intelligence can efficiently sort through vast datasets and even find patterns between different datasets. These systems improve efficiency at every step of the big data cycle which consists of data collection, data storage, data analysis, and knowledge creation. These abilities in collecting, storing, and analyzing millions of data points save humans time, money, and resources that can be put towards other life-saving efforts within the medical field. AI also helps humans process and understand large data sets by pointing out abnormalities and unexpected patterns shown in the datasets, and by protecting data sets from malware threats if encrypted. Researchers in the medical field often have to use large data sets, so the efficiency of AI is highly beneficial to aid their research.
Artificial Intelligence also helps doctors by completing the tedious tasks that they usually must complete by hand, allowing them more time to focus on the patient rather than paperwork. In the book, Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Health Care Human Again, Eric Topol talks about how AI in the health care system will benefit every individual by allowing “deep healing” to occur between a doctor and their patient. Instead of focusing on tasks that require a lot of effort like handling all the scans or analyzing patient data, doctors can use AI to complete such tasks while directing their time to the tasks that only a human could complete – talking with patients, examining the complexities of their case, and making life saving decisions. Topol says that AI will allow for compassion to expand within the healthcare field and will decrease the number of burned-out doctors to a large extent. Working in the medical field can often be mentally draining, yet doctor’s, physicians assistants, and nurses need to operate at their best to treat each patient with the attention they deserve, so by removing mundane tasks and letting healthcare workers focus all their time on the patient, AI reduces such mental and emotional burnout. A better working environment for doctors, nurses, and technicians will allow for a better and more improved healthcare system.
AI in medical imaging has the potential to improve the healthcare field in a way that we have never seen before. AI is beneficial in the early detection of disease, in synthesizing larger data, and in making the data more readily accessible to health care providers. It reduces stress and creates a better working healthcare environment for patients, doctors, nurses, and technicians which will allow for a better healthcare system. The exciting future of healthcare awaits us and AI is certainly included.
CITATIONS
Topol, Eric J. Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again. Basic Books, 2019.
McNemar, Erin. “Improving Breast Cancer Imaging with Artificial Intelligence.” HealthITAnalytics, 28 Sept. 2021.
Pepic, I., Feldt, R., Ljungström, L. et al. Early detection of sepsis using artificial intelligence: a scoping review protocol. Syst Rev 10, 28 2021.Cech, Laura.
“AI Speeds Sepsis Detection to Prevent Hundreds of Deaths.” The Hub, 21 July 2022.