The strain of the COVID-19 pandemic on the healthcare system has made it more imperative than ever that healthcare institutions leverage AI for faster and more accurate diagnostics – and minimize unnecessary contact with patients.
No one can argue that healthcare workers are amongst the most impacted – both with the workload of caring for those infected, and with the risk of infection. Even with more precautions being implemented, we are still seeing an increase in the number of reported cases of healthcare workers contracting COVID-19. In fact, Reuters has reported the average infection rate for healthcare workers is 6%. This means that of the 3.5 million cases reported globally, there could be more than 200,000 healthcare workers infected by COVID-19. In an already under-staffed and over-worked institution, AI-driven diagnostics could make a positive impact to healthcare workers and their patients.
AI-driven diagnostics are a way to detect insights, ease the diagnostic burden of healthcare workers, and reduce their own risk of infection. Healthcare institutions that have already implemented AI-driven diagnostics are seeing a positive impact – reduced time for diagnosis, higher accuracy in diagnosis, and the ability to monitor patients remotely. These benefits are not only reducing and improving diagnosis but are also making it safer for healthcare workers to provide care. Here are three recent examples.
Reduced Time for Diagnosis
A medical data analysis company in Beijing, LinkingMed, is able to diagnose pneumonia, a complication of COVID-19, in less than a minute. The diagnosis is done from analyzing a CT scan, and its test results are accurate 92% of the time, with a test recall rate of 97%.
Higher Accuracy
Many artificial intelligence diagnostics platforms have been outperforming medical experts, especially on medical imaging tasks. A team of Google and Imperial College researchers recently developed an AI model that can diagnose breast cancer from mammograms. During testing, the tool not only outperformed individual radiologists, but it was just as effective as two radiologists working together.
Remote Patient Monitoring
Two Israeli hospitals have launched an AI-based remote ICU to support COVID-19 patients. Their platform is trained to identify respiratory deterioration in advance, enabling early interventions that might change the clinical outcome. This allows healthcare workers to identify disease severity from a remote command center.
With so many benefits, why are healthcare providers skeptical about adopting this type of technology? One reason is the fear that Artificial Intelligence will replace medical professionals.
It’s true that AI could potentially replace many repetitive tasks that healthcare workers have to perform. However, these platforms are designed to assist medical professionals in their decision-making, not replace them completely. AI technology can handle backlogs of scans, offer preliminary or routine analysis on health data, and provide insight when a healthcare worker is not present. Diagnosing patients is a very delicate task. Implementing AI-driven diagnostics throughout a healthcare organization allows healthcare providers to provide a higher level of care in less time than before.
Orion’s NLP Platform comprehends textual data, like doctors’ reports, with human-like interpretive intelligence. It connects the diagnosis with MRIs, CT Scans, Mammograms, and X-rays to train machines. In the end, machines work faster and more accurately, work 24/7, facilitate remote working, and allow clinics to handle more patients in less time.
Contact us to find out how we can help your healthcare institution with AI-driven diagnostics at [email protected].
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