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AI in Healthcare – Eldercare Part 5/5

AI in Healthcare - Eldercare

Introduction

This is Part 5 in the series on Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare. Part 1 provided a broad overview of the industry and how AI is already being used. Part 2 focused on how doctors and clinicians use AI and how it will impact their daily practices. Part 3 described how hospitals are using AI to increase efficiency across several departments while at the same time providing better patient access to hospital systems. Part 4 illustrates how the pharmaceutical industry uses AI to reduce the R&D of new drugs but is also more focused on clinical trials and production. In Part 5, I will discuss how AI is helping in eldercare, probably not an area you think it would be in, but it is increasingly helping caregivers in many dimensions.

Why Eldercare?

The simple reason is that it’s complicated. My response is not complicated; healthcare for older adults is complicated. Think about it for a minute. First, this is my opinion, and I’m not a doctor, but I have experience providing care for our parents and stepparents for almost 15 years.

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AI in Healthcare – Pharmaceuticals Part 4/5

AI in Healthcare - Pharma

This is Part 4 in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) series in healthcare. Previous articles provided a general introduction (Part 1), how clinicians are using AI (Part 2), and how health systems are using AI (part 3). In Part 4, I move into the area of drug development using AI; I’m using the word drug to refer to any medication developed and marketed by the industry. This area will see the most impact in healthcare over the next five years or earlier.

First, a short note. My experience in the pharmaceutical industry is more limited than in the provider side of healthcare. I have performed several small projects in back office operations, not discovery, development, regulations, or marketing. My knowledge comes from discussions with those in the industry and reading many books and journals over the past several years to help me better understand the industry. I’ve also used the very thing I’m writing about, AI, to expand my knowledge in this field. Please read this article with that in mind and feel free to offer corrections where appropriate. Be gentle. So, let’s dive in.

An Overview of the Industry

We have all taken drugs at some point in our lives, hopefully keeping on the right side of the law. Getting a medication to the point where it becomes safe to take involves a large amount of research and money. AI is transforming the pharmaceutical industry by improving drug discovery and delivery efficiency, accuracy, and speed. The following is a brief overview of bringing a medication to market and, more importantly, into your body.

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AI in Healthcare – Hospitals Part 3/5

AI is changing how hospitals operate and will drastically change it moving forward. In Part 3, I’ll provide an overview of how AI is being used in the operations of hospitals to increase availability, reduce costs, and provide better care for the population in their community.

Running a hospital is a complex set of operations, no pun intended, processes, regulations, licensing, people management, and patients. Early in my career, a management consulting partner said there was not much difference between manufacturing and hospitals; the processes are just different. The word clueless came to mind almost instantly. The BIG difference is that humans are the focus of the processes, not pieces or parts. Add in licenses for just about everyone in the field, outside certification agencies, and a staggering number of regulations and you have an industry like no other.

Everything is focused on getting the patient better and as close to good health as possible. It’s a highly complex business that only some have a complete picture of how it all works together, and sometimes doesn’t, to heal people. I’ve come close but still only have a tiny understanding of everything.

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AI in Healthcare Part 2/5

AI in Healthcare - Physicians

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is new to many, but it has existed for decades. It has hit the news recently, primarily due to the release from OPEN.AI and their ChatGPT platform. (GPT: Generative Pre-Trained Transformers, not the movie kind, and emphasis on the pre-trained part) For the first time, AI is accessible to the masses, and those masses are turning AI into exciting products and offerings, with healthcare being one of the primary recipients.

In the first part of this series, I attempted to set the stage for how pervasive AI has become in the past couple of years. It provided an overview of the impact on healthcare and the areas we’ll look at in this series.

In Part 2, I’ll focus on healthcare delivery by physicians, how they use it to increase their ability to deliver diagnoses and treatments to you, and how they can reduce the burden of all their paperwork. Yes, there’s a lot of paperwork and fax machines!

First a Warning

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AI in Healthcare – An Overview

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) – the ability of computer systems to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence – is transforming nearly every industry. Healthcare is no exception. AI is being integrated throughout the healthcare field, from assisting doctors in making diagnoses to streamlining hospital operations to discovering new life-saving drugs. In the past three years, investments in digital health have been at $87.9B, according to CB Insights Q3 2023 State of Digital Health. 

Before we get too far, let’s first look at some definitions:

Algorithms: Step-by-step instructions for computers to follow. These tell computers what to do, analyze, load, or do some other operation.

Machine learning: Computers learn patterns from data to make their own decisions. You can see this being used in recommending additional purchases, movies, apparel, books, etc. 

Artificial intelligence: Computers mimic human intelligence to understand their surroundings and solve complex problems. You can see this in almost everything today, from writing to image recognition and creation. 

Artificial general intelligence: Computers that can understand and solve problems similar or better than humans across many subjects. This is the next wave where systems will start adding intelligence to form new ways of doing work, art, processes, and more. It’s also the type of intelligence that creates a lot of concern from those who know how it works.

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