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How AI is Shaping the Future of Medicine
- Myra Singh
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
The past 50+ years we have discovered crucial breakthroughs regarding treatment, technology, and diagnoses in the medical field. In the past 50 years, we have developed and created photo-chemotherapy, MRI technology and the discovery of insulin resistance receptors, each revolutionizing the way we treat and diagnose patients accurately today. Reflecting on these miraculous achievements, the question arises: what does the future hold for medicine? With the recent surge of software and artificial intelligence (AI) development, the potential to use such technological tools would reshape healthcare. With AI, doctors would be able to identify and treat chronic disease with immense accuracy, improve patient care, and create suitable long-term treatment plans per patient. Integrating AI in medicine is bound to lead to unlock many new possibilities. Though, this future comes with its challenges such as ensuring ethical use, data security concerns, and privacy risks. Amongst these advancements, one thing can be determined–AI isn’t just a tool for medicine, it's a stimulant for a new era of healthcare.
AI Driven Drug Discovery
The first benefit of using AI in medicine would be being able to significantly reduce the time and cost in developing and synthesizing new drug treatments. This is done by rapidly analyzing and assessing large datasets of molecular structures, biological interactions and clinical trial outcomes, AI outpaces traditional methods of research. AI is able to analyze patterns and potential success that would be easy for humans to miss. An example of such an instance is in the AI assisted discovery of Baricitinib during the Covid-19 pandemic, originally an arthritis treatment drug that had potential to be considered as a treatment and was later included in clinical trials within months. This is a perfect example of how AI can use time and cost efficiently to create a fast pace solution for an extreme problem such as the pandemic.
Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics use patient history and previous statistics to create accurate predictions of future outcomes for the patient. In this case, it would identify patterns and data similar to that of the current patient to predict the most likely possible outcome. Predictive analytics in healthcare would identify patients at risk for unexpected occurrences and optimize treatment plans. These benefits enable time efficient treatments and increase the survival rate of the patient. Incorporating predictive analytics through AI in medicine could pinpoint risks that physicians may have missed and improve the overall quality of healthcare.
Ethical Issues
Amongst its many benefits, incorporating AI in medicine has raised ethical issues in the community as well. The first key issue of AI in healthcare would be data privacy and security concerns. The large amounts of data and information required by AI to create accurate healthcare diagnoses make patient information prone to leakage and would make them targets for data breaches. Another ethical issue that may be faced whilst incorporating the use of AI in medicine could be the overreliance of AI by attending physicians resulting in a misdiagnosis of the patient's condition. This over reliance over time could lead to a diminished clinical judgment in a physicians career increasing the potential for unnecessary treatments and mid diagnoses which could all lead to the deterioration of a patient's overall health. Harnessing the power of AI with responsibility would require immense education on ethical concerns such as the ones listed earlier with a curriculum that adjusts to the fast paced development of technology in the current day.
With each day, AI takes a step forward in its ability to evolve and grow. AI’s impact on medicine and health care is great and offers an infinite amount of opportunities of growth and improvement. AI can accelerate patient plans, enhance drug discovery, and predict health outcomes from individual to individual with accuracy. Although, amongst these great benefits, applying AI in healthcare raises ethical concerns as well such as over reliance and data privacy issues. A combination of human skills and the power of AI could create a more efficient healthcare system that has benefits for all those participating in it. Human skill sets and AI efficiency would create limitless opportunities for healthcare.
Sources
Nature Medicine- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03434-4#:~:text=AI%20is%20revolutionizing%20the%20process,lead%20compounds%20and%20drug%20candidates
National Library of Medicine- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9231077/
Viva Technology- https://vivatechnology.com/news/predictive-analytics-in-healthcare-innovation-and-examples
Assessed and Endorsed by the MedReport Medical Review Board
