Artificial Intelligence: A Review of Progress and Prospects in Medicine and Healthcare

Abstract

Andrew NG, a leading philosopher in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) once quoted “AI is the new electricity” which has the potential to transform and drive every industry. The most important driving factor for the AI transformation will be data. Clive Humby, a data science entrepreneur was once quoted saying “data is the new oil” and data analytics being the “combustion engine” will drive the AI led innovations. The rapid rise of Artificial Intelligence technologies in the past decade, has inspired industries to invest in every opportunity for integrating AI solutions to their products. Research, development, and innovation in the field of AI are shaping various industries like automobile, manufacturing, finance, retail, supply chain management, and education among others. The healthcare industry has also been adopting the ways of AI into various workflows within the domain. With the evolution in computing and processing powers coupled with hardware modernizations, the adoption of AI looks more feasible than ever. Research and Innovations are happening in almost every field of healthcare and hospital workflows with the target of making healthcare processes more efficient & accessible, increase the overall state of healthcare, reduce physician stress levels, and increase the patient satisfaction levels. The conventional ways in which healthcare and clinical workflows have been operating are now starting to see the change with the integration of many data driven AI solutions. The digital innovations are making life easy for healthcare professionals allowing them to spend more time listening to the problems of patients and consequently increasing the patient satisfaction levels. However, there are limitations and concerns on security of Protected Health Information which have to be addressed for a seamless amalgamation of AI systems into the healthcare domain. Many papers have been published which mostly talk about one particular field/problem in the healthcare domain. No publications have covered the opportunities provided by AI technologies to the entire healthcare domain. This review paper discusses in detail about the progress AI has been able to make in the healthcare domain holistically and what the future of AI looks like. The paper also discusses about the implementation opportunities various AI technologies like Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision provide in different fields of healthcare and clinical workflows and how Artificial Intelligence systems will boost the capabilities of healthcare professionals in restoring the human touch in patient-physician encounters. A physician’s intuition and judgement will always remain better suited since each case, each health condition, and each person is unique in its own way, but AI methods can help enhance the accuracy of diagnosis, assist physicians in making improved and precise clinical decisions.