How AI is Shaping the Future of Medicine

Artificial intelligence (AI) and ambient intelligence are quickly changing the way healthcare functions. From predicting patient needs to assisting with diagnoses and treatments, AI is making a significant impact on improving outcomes and saving lives. In this article, we'll look at the role AI plays in healthcare, as well as the challenges that remain in its path.

Benefits of AI in Healthcare

AI's biggest advantage in healthcare is its ability to make decisions based on data. By processing large sets of information, AI can detect patterns and trends that might go unnoticed by humans or take longer to uncover. This enhanced data analysis helps healthcare professionals use their time more effectively, enabling them to make better decisions about patient care and treatment options.

One of the key areas where AI is being used is in improving diagnostic tools. AI systems can analyze medical images and patient data, often detecting conditions with greater accuracy than human doctors. This is especially valuable for identifying cancers and rare diseases, which are difficult to detect in some cases.

Advanced AI systems combine diagnostic data with information about a patient's medical history and test results, enabling them to recommend the most suitable treatment. Instead of analyzing a patient's information in isolation, AI brings together all available data, including population health trends, to suggest more comprehensive care strategies. AI also helps track patient progress, assist in planning treatments, and even alert doctors to potential issues. In some cases, AI can help with treatment directly, whether through robots in surgeries or systems that manage medication delivery.

AI and Data for Healthcare 

As mentioned earlier, AI's success in healthcare relies heavily on the availability of data. Thankfully, healthcare is one of the most data-rich fields globally. This puts AI in a unique position to analyze that data and turn it into valuable insights that can improve patient care, enhance transparency, streamline workflows, and aid in the development of new treatments. Essentially, AI has the potential to make healthcare more efficient, personalized, and cost-effective, while also making care more accessible to people.

Drug Development and Patient Treatment

AI is also advancing drug development and treatment strategies. By analyzing clinical trial data, AI can detect patterns that suggest new ways to use existing medications or find new treatments for various diseases. Additionally, AI is capable of screening large numbers of compounds to identify which ones may work effectively against specific diseases.

In 2021, AI was used by researchers at the Mayo Clinic to screen 30 million drug candidates that could potentially fight COVID-19. The AI system narrowed down the list by simulating the effects of the compounds and eventually identified 25 viable candidates believed to be effective against the virus.

Use of Vocal Biomarkers in Detecting Depression

A less frequently discussed aspect of AI in healthcare is its potential to improve the well-being of healthcare professionals themselves. Clinicians are increasingly overwhelmed by the growing amount of administrative work, which includes documentation, data entry, and patient communications. This rising workload is a significant cause of burnout, depression, and suicide among healthcare workers—issues that are often underreported.

With advances in AI and speech recognition, and growing evidence of the effectiveness of vocal biomarkers for detecting depression, there is hope that AI could eventually help diagnose and detect depression through speech patterns in both patients and clinicians. Research has found that certain speech patterns, such as hesitations, pauses, and the use of filler words, can be indicators of depression. AI can analyze these patterns and flag potential symptoms, which could assist both patients and healthcare providers in getting the help they need before the condition worsens.

It is more challenging to identify depression in healthcare providers, particularly since many clinicians are reluctant to acknowledge their own mental health struggles, especially in such a high-stress profession. However, AI-driven medical tools like SOAPsuds, which are emerging to assist clinicians, could potentially address these issues by reducing the workload that contributes to burnout.

AI Can’t Fix Everything 

It’s important to keep in mind that AI is meant to assist healthcare providers by helping them consider factors and make decisions faster. AI is not intended to replace human providers, nor is it a cure-all for healthcare’s problems. While AI holds great promise, it will not fix everything overnight. Engineers and developers will need to put in considerable effort to create AI systems that are both practical and reliable.

Moreover, there is understandable skepticism around the widespread use of AI, especially regarding issues like algorithmic bias and the potential to worsen healthcare disparities among underrepresented groups such as women and people of color. However, if AI systems are developed by diverse and thoughtful teams, there is hope within the healthcare community that AI will greatly improve patient care outcomes.

Clinical Documentation with AI Medical Scribes and Medical Dictation Software 

SOAPsuds is an AI-powered medical scribe that uses machine learning and natural language processing to convert natural conversations between clinicians and patients into structured medical notes. These notes enable clinicians to spend less time on documentation and more time with their patients.

While SOAPsuds is not yet capable of eliminating all administrative tasks for clinicians, it can significantly automate the medical documentation process, a task that consumes up to six hours of a clinician's day. By reducing this burden, SOAPsuds helps providers focus more on patient care and their own well-being.

If you are interested in how SOAPsuds can assist your practice in streamlining medical documentation, feel free to contact us. We've helped providers save up to three hours per day on documentation tasks, helping them return their focus to patient care and rediscover the joy in practicing medicine. We aim to make healthcare more fulfilling for clinicians and patients alike.