In the healthcare industry, AI & machine learning is extremely helpful for developing new pharmaceuticals and the efficiency of diagnosis processes, shares Abdullah Saleem, Group CIO, Omni Hospitals with Kaanchi Chawla of Elets News Network (ENN). Edited excerpts:

How has AI transformed healthcare delivery? What are some of the notable use cases that you recall?

An Artificial Intelligence (AI) system defeated elite doctors in China in a two-round brain tumour diagnosis competition. AI was correct 7 per cent of the time and took about 15 minutes to diagnose 225 cases in the first round, while doctors achieved 66 per cent accuracy in 30 minutes. In the second round, AI made correct predictions in 83 per cent of brain hematoma expansion cases in just 3 minutes surpassing the 63 per cent accuracy of a group of physicians, who took 20 minutes to feed the AI system with thousands of images of nervous system-related diseases.

Down the line, the EMR/ EHR/ PHR would be developed and made to empower the doctors with AI to enable one of the best option impacting everything from patient experience to diagnostics. It would be wondering how long it will be before it’s considered incomplete to diagnose a patient’s disease without using AI.

What according to you could be the growing potential of AI-based tools for healthcare delivery?

Largely, AI is going to be embedded in all the clinical pathways to enable a strong clinical application/ CDSS which will not allow the treating doctors/ treating clinical team to change the content of the treatment by more than 10 to 15 per cent at the point of care to deliver the patient care. AI will also be integrated into runtime with clinical treatment guidelines like NCCN, ESC, ACC, etc, to make the most accurate prediction to enable the treatment protocol for the treating doctors/ treating clinical team at the point of care. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Predictive Analytics (PA) are the only components which is going to reduce the clinician’s involvement in executing the treatment mechanism by 60-70 per cent. As far as the potential of AI is concerned, no clinical application would be accepted by healthcare providers if it has not been made with a deeper AI touch because it is the only component to deliver quality care to reduce clinical errors and better outcomes.

The growing digital footprint and technology trends have enhanced healthcare systems, but there still lies the need for human manpower. Where are the gaps in curating healthcare data?

Artificial intelligence has got multiple applications outside treating and responding to pandemic. AI is incredibly helpful for improving efficiency with information processing and decision-making for clinicians. In the healthcare industry, AI & Machine Learning are extremely helpful for developing new pharmaceuticals and the efficiency of diagnosis processes. A few of the researchers have utilised machine learning to track trends and mental health in correlation to the COVID-19 pandemic. By using an AI model, they could see thousands of online Reddit messages to find that topics of suicidality and loneliness had nearly doubled over a period. It has the potential to transform understanding of the mental health of larger populations.

However, AI & ML will not completely replace human intervention, but they will be an unavoidable tool for clinicians to adapt during care delivery.

There is no denying that the healthcare AI market is brimming with innovations that crop up at an astounding rate. Having said that, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that clinics will inevitably replace doctors with Artificial Intelligence one day. But likely it will never happen, and clinicians/ care teams don’t need to worry about their involvement to deliver the care delivery.

AI and robots cannot show empathy, sympathy, and compassion as these are one of the key elements of quality healthcare. It improves patient satisfaction and promotes healing. Unfortunately, empathy and sympathy are unachievable for an automated machine, and that is the main argument against autonomous AI in healthcare.

Though AI can outperform doctors in a variety of tasks, it cannot become a human being. Only a flesh-and-blood clinician can support the patient during a challenging treatment process; hold their hand while breaking life-changing diagnosis news to them; entertain a scared child during drawing blood, or genuinely worry about their patients. We might teach robots to mimic these things, but sincerity cannot be taught.

As far as the gaps in curating the healthcare data is concerned, it is related to a challenge from the healthcare provider/ hospital’s side to develop the clinical data, which could be coming from multiple resources like medical devices, and interoperability. In other words, this process includes activities like data selection, classification, validation, and remediation of disparate data that comes from multiple sources. The trend is trying to mitigate this challenge by adopting the technology to enable 100 per cent clinical data consolidation to enable better CDSS at the point of care to the clinicians and other HCPs.

However, most hospitals are in the evolving phase to ensure data consolidation so that AI can be enabled in a much more effective way to get better clinical outcomes. This challenge would be mitigated in the coming days as the adoption of the technology, especially in the healthcare industry, is way ahead post-pandemic across the globe.

AI-enabled robots can be a big boon in healthcare. How do you think it is helping doctors in their day-to-day life?

Yes, of course, robots are helping surgeons. Today, in medical science, robotic systems already provide a wide range of services in healthcare, including surgical assistance, patient rehabilitation, cleaning and sterilisation, dispensing drugs, and remote diagnosis. It improves patient satisfaction and promotes healing. It is being used to reduce surgical errors and make surgery less invasive for thousands of patients; it gives surgeons more precise control for a range of procedures.

It puts consumers in control of their health and well-being quickly. Additionally, AI Robots increase the ability of healthcare professionals to have a better understanding of the day-to-day patterns and needs of the people they care and treat for, and with that understanding, HCPs can provide better feedback, guidance, and support for staying well & healthy.

AI is getting increasingly sophisticated at doing what a human being does, but more efficiently, more quickly, and at a much lower cost. The potential for both AI and robotics in healthcare is immense and evolving. Just like in our everyday lives, AI and robotics are increasingly a part of the healthcare ecosystem. India is one of the countries that is adopting and promoting robotic tools to deliver care delivery more cost-effective and clinically error-free.

What more can be done to enhance healthcare innovations in India?

Over the last decade, technologies have been driving the healthcare industry through various innovations in how it finds, prevents, and cures diseases. This should not have happened without the gigantic growth of AI-driven technologies and digitisation of healthcare workflows & clinical pathways as a response to more savage global conditions, as well as the rising demand for accessible, and quality healthcare services.

As we press on into the future, it is critical to remain mindful of the trends driving healthcare technology in 2022 and the coming year. Although the legacy software and infrastructure which still fulfills a business need is critical to the success of modern hospitals and care centres, it is important that we consider how those systems can integrate with newer technologies or how they may eventually be replaced with more reliable healthcare echo systems. The focus should be on improving performance, productivity, efficiency, and data security without sacrificing reliability, sustainability, and accessibility.

If you are ready to explore the technological innovations driving the healthcare industry towards digital transformation in the coming year, let us look at the most important technologies that have the potential to transform your organization with cost-effectiveness and affordability.

Indian hospitals should have a much better understanding and believe that without digital transformation, better and cost-effective care delivery, patient, and clinician satisfaction cannot be achieved. Also, hospitals should allot the Information Technology budget by 2.00 to 2.5 per cent of their revenue each year to have advanced technology-based applications and tools in place. Apart from it, Indian hospitals should be very innovative by:

• Making innovation part of your culture
• Empowered consumers
• Creating a governance structure
• Innovating through collaboration
• Thinking ‘out-of-the-box’ for funding
• Using small pilots to innovate
• Data sharing
• Interoperability
• AI in Diagnosis and drug development
• Natural Language Processing (NLP)
• Complying with regulation
• Data & Security
• Virtual health technology

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