As the buzz around the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare is increasing, there is an increased perception of threat to existing healthcare provider roles in the ecosystem. Most stakeholders are concerned that with the wide availability of AI based software in health, their current roles at least in the present form will cease to exist. This concern was voiced by many Infectious Disease physicians during our interactions with them at the recently concluded “ID Week 2019” at Washington DC as well while discussing about our AI based Antimicrobial Stewardship software ZEVAC.
Healthcare providers are not the only ones raising these kinds of concerns around the adoption of AI based technologies. Sectors like banking, aviation, manufacturing etc. where AI is already widely adopted, have also seen similar discourse at some point in time. However, experience from these sectors has shown no reduction in number of jobs with the introduction of AI. It has only seen the requirement for different skill set for jobs over the years.
Healthcare as a sector has huge gaps currently in terms of access to care as well as affordability and quality of care. There are millions of people around the globe who have no access to specialized care. Even where care is available, the cost and quality of care are a matter of concern. These gaps make healthcare an appropriate use case for AI based technologies that
In fields like infection management where sensitivity patterns and trends are changing rapidly, sometimes as frequently as every three months, the relevance of recent data in treatment decisions becomes more imperative. Given the amount of data required to be processed for identifying trends and patterns in infection, it is difficult for the human mind to be able to stay on top of things. Analyzing infection related data and giving actionable insights is thus a relevant use case where AI is the perfect enabler for the infectious disease specialists to take data backed decisions for precision medicine.
It is worth mentioning here that AI can only handle the large database and its analytics but cannot take care of the finer nuances of clinical decision-making. It would thus be safe to conclude that the current AI systems cannot be robust enough to replace the physician in infection management. They can at best be an enabler for an experienced physician allowing him/ her to take data based decisions and even help them cater to multiple healthcare units at one time (given the shortage of the number of ID physicians in countries like US).
To conclude, in a healthcare system perpetually constrained by costs and availability of trained workforce, the possibilities for AI to solve problems and improve efficiencies is huge. What is required is to allay the fears of the stakeholders by positioning AI an enabler rather than a threat or replacement.