Artificial Intelligence: Public Health

Artificial Intelligence: a term we have all accepted into our modern day world. Artificial intelligence has slowly crept into the inner workings of our society, and we have come to depend on it for parts of everyday life. As of late, we have seen a growth in the use of artificial intelligence for general medicinal purposes. For example, the biggest investments in artificial intelligence occurred in the healthcare sector. Artificial intelligence has played a role in digesting medical data, and even ameliorating the patient experience. Algorithms and applications powered by artificial intelligence have played a large role in aiding everything from the functioning of walk-in clinics to medical research.

In the healthcare sector, Artificial Intelligence can be classified into the categories of virtual and physical. Virtual care includes the storage of health records, and aiding patients in making decisions on future treatment. Physical care may include assistance in surgeries, and intelligent prosthetic limbs. AI has even played a crucial role in the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic. This included monitoring and screening patients afflicted by the virus.

Artificial intelligence has begun to play a crucial role in the world of public health. Primary care physicians have depended on artificial intelligence with intelligent computer applications, in order to identify patients in need, and create personal care schedules for them. According to a study conducted in 2016, primary care physicians spent around 49% of their days viewing virtual hospital records, and spent 59% of their time in examination rooms on EHR (electronic health records).

AI may even completely redefine our definition of efficacy and precision in medicine. Artificial intelligence has been used to screen medication in the fight against the Ebola virus, which would otherwise have taken years to do, with the usage of human processes. Certain AI systems have even been proven to outperform human healthcare professionals, due to their speed in processing and comprehending patient cases. Where certain medical devices can perform their advertised functions, artificial intelligence can process this data in order to identify other underlying health conditions.

In the future, artificial intelligence is expected to be assigned more responsibility. Its ability to monitor a large number of patients, simultaneously, will play a large role in identifying the medication required, and reducing the time that it takes for patient referrals, and other general processes followed in the public health sector. Over time, artificial intelligence is also expected to be able to perform more specific tasks, and perform tasks in symbiosis with legitimate healthcare professionals. In this way, both artificial intelligence, and primary care workers, will benefit from each others’ knowledge.