AI in healthcare

When you get to the waiting room, are you still waiting for the nurse to take your medical chart? Or do you just stick it in the machine, pick a reason for your visit, and sit down before your turn is called?

And does your doctor already have a chat room where you can ask questions instead of a lengthy visit?

All these things are already commonplace in some places. Let's take a look at how AI is helping in healthcare.

The origins of AI in healthcare

AI first appeared in healthcare in the 1960s. For example, the first AI medical consultant was called INTERNIST-1 and has been in use since 1971. It applied search algorithms to determine a likely diagnosis based on a patient's symptoms

The modern era of AI began in the early 21st century with systems such as IBM's Watson (2010), which expanded the capabilities of AI beyond symptom-based diagnosis alone. Watson could already take questions in human language.

Where can we meet AI in healthcare?

AI in healthcare serves both healthcare professionals and patients.

For ordinary mortals, for example, these categories are:

Personal health

AI helps address the processing of personal health data from wearable devices and electronic health records. . Apple Watch's advanced sensors capture complex health data, while AI algorithms analyse this data to provide personalised information.

Chatbots

Chatbots, for example, have proven effective in . If you'd like to try it out, check out, for example, the popular from ChatGPT. If you just need advice on symptoms or are interested in something health related, try by Slovak artists. MediSearch is a chatbot that searches through studies and scholarly articles instead of the entire internet. It can speak English or Slovak, but it can speak Czech too.

Besides chatbots, there are many other applications that use AI, such as Czech . This will help with AI transcription, annotation and analysis for clinicians.

Healthcare professionals can then use AI in the following ways:

Genetics and disease

AI can also, for example, analyse DNA sequences and can thus help diagnose genetic disorders. It can also help with protein analysis, from which various health conditions or responses to treatment can be predicted.

Extra pair(set) of eyes

Computer-aided detection (CAD) can help in image analysis. This is a technology designed to reduce the number of observation oversights - and thus the rate of false negatives - by doctors interpreting medical images. For example, prospective clinical trials have shown an increase in breast cancer detection rates with CAD.