Artificial Intelligence’s Future in Healthcare

All eyes are on artificial intelligence (AI) as industries such as finance, retail and communications have started down the path to embracing its power. AI’s future in healthcare has yet to be determined, but experts are paying attention to its potential impact.

“Healthcare’s late-to-the-game position may mean that health care can learn from other industries that have gone all in,” says Erik Brynjolfsson, PhD, Professor and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, Director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He spoke at the recent TDC Group Executive Advisory Board Meeting in Napa, Calif., which brings together top healthcare executives, academic researchers and clinical leaders to discuss the changing landscape of health care as part of the Leading Voices in Healthcare initiative.

Potentials areas of use for AI in health care are prediction and classification since healthcare systems are steeped in data, which is the lifeblood of training AI systems. According to Dr. Brynjolfsson, “Health care systems also need help organizing their data for daily tasks like scheduling, billing, culling prescription data and more-and in all these areas, AI could deliver.”

At this moment, Dr. Brynjolfsson emphasized, the real benefit from AI comes from machines and human working together. OSM