For readers who aren’t aware, what are some of the key ways that AI can improve healthcare?
Artificial intelligence is all about using computers to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence. For organizations of all types, AI presents three interrelated opportunities: information processing, prediction and optimization. When you apply that lens to healthcare, there are numerous ways to be smarter and more targeted about the kinds of healthcare interventions we undertake and to improve the efficiency of our operations.
One key way to apply AI to healthcare is by automating menial tasks that are labour-intensive but don’t require sophisticated human intelligence. By doing this we can relieve the burden on the workforce, which is already over-stretched. Simple examples include scheduling staff and inventory management. When we take these tasks away from workers, they can focus on other things that add more value for people.
A second set of applications is more aspirational in nature, as it relates to improving clinical decision-making. Put simply, AI can help ensure patients receive the precise treatment that is right for them at a specific moment in time. Achieving this will involve using powerful computational methods to predict which patients are at risk for which outcomes by mining data about a specific patient, cross-referencing this with the vast body of scientific evidence, and then choosing the appropriate treatment based on that. Overall, this is really about personalizing care, which some people call precision medicine. AI is not a silver bullet, but it could be an important part of redesigning the Canadian healthcare system to address the critical challenges of volume pressures and wait times.
Having said all of that, how would you describe
