Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to become a standard piece of the healthcare puzzle, despite the common misconceptions of what it actually entails. It’s not intended to automate call centers or replace physicians, but rather to assist them, augmenting their capabilities and helping to bring a health system’s full potential into reality.
Healthcare systems face a wide range of challenges, such as workforce shortages, financial issues, patient safety, access to care, patient satisfaction, technology, population health management, and logistical complications like mergers and acquisitions. While AI won’t be a panacea for all these challenges, its adoption can help healthcare achieve far more with less by acting as a clinical partner and optimizing tool.
AI contributes towards healthier clinical outcomes in three primary ways:
1. Reduced Hospital Length of Stay (LOS): Using AI to triage patients has been proven to substantially reduce LOS. This is achieved by offering patients timely and appropriate treatment, enabling them to return to their lives more quickly.
2. Enhanced Disease Awareness: System-wide implementation of AI can increase awareness of patients in need amongst specialists. AI connects these professionals, allowing them to act faster and help more patients, thus eliminating unnecessary time-wasting processes.
3. Expedited Treatment: AI continually impacts patient treatment times in ways that are often surprising. For instance, one study found that AI-assistance in helping radiologists to triage patients resulted in significant reductions in the median time to emergency department presentation and anticoagulant prescription retrieval.
But AI doesn’t just improve patient outcomes – it also enhances clinical operations by:
1. Alleviating Administrative Burden: AI can automate time-consuming tasks, leading to better work-life balance for healthcare workers and stronger patient-provider relationships.
2. Health System Optimization: AI brings value by accelerating analysis and prioritization of scans, which then leads to faster diagnoses, better accuracy and improvements in workflow and reading time.
3. The Clinical Partnership: AI gives time back to clinicians by automating tasks, reducing staff burnout, and increasing diagnostic efficiency for accurate and timely decisions.
In time, AI’s role in healthcare is projected to grow. While it was initially designed mainly for use in reading rooms, its application is extending further, particularly as more AI companies are adopting platform approaches that offer health systems a comprehensive AI interface. As healthcare systems continue to understand the role they want AI to play, these advancements will keep unfolding, bringing consistent benefits to healthcare professionals and patients.
