ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN MEDICINE _ The World Biggest Transformation.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been the talk of the Town Of Technology for the better part of the last decade. And, just like many other much-hyped topics, it is seen to be very multifaceted. Many are aware of the capabilities of AI; some of them are already proven. Transformation is happening all across the globe in industries like Agriculture, Finance and most especially Healthcare. There are many Data Scientist, Machine Learning Engineers, and developers working to build the good sides of AI, using it to make the world a safer place. I believe that to prove AI technologies, it could be a real boom to mankind, should we use its power for good?

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REAL WORLD APPLICATIONS IN HEALTHCARE.

The role AI can play in personal fitness is something which is brought to notice recently to make people achieve their healthcare and human safety goals. With AI, neural networks can process masses of raw data, learn how to organize data, removing outliers and using the most important variables in predicting health outcomes. Now, let’s see the diversities of AI in Healthcare.

• Although, digital mammography is seen as the Vogue in spotting, diagnosing breast cancer early remains a change. Google health uses AI to improve breast cancer screening. It shows that its AI is capable of surpassing human experts in breast cancer prediction.
• Diabetics Retinopathy_ an eye condition that affects people with diabetics is the fastest growing cause of blindness. It’s treatable if detected early, but if not, it can lead to irreversible blindness. Google Research Team has built a deep learning algorithm capable of interpreting signs in retinal photographs. It helps doctors screen more patients especially in societies with limited resources.
• Pattern recognition to identify patients with the risk of developing an infection.

Recently, I read an article on how a deep learning algorithm was programmed in making future predictions if a person is liable to develop cancer in the next 10 years with about 98% accuracy. These are advanced ways of saving people’s lives and future. Imagine, you getting to realize you might get cancer in 10 years time. What would you have done? Absolutely, we are having the same thought.

Now, let’s get specialized in my aspect of medicine.

DERMATOLOGY.

This is an aspect of medicine that focuses on health issues affecting the skin, hair, nail and mucous membrane. It’s going to be a great Innovation if dermatology is freely accessible to people who are not able to access it but who has smartphones because not everybody can afford it. How nice would it be if people can just know the kind of infection they have and how to treat different skin diseases with just their smartphones.

Few months ago, I happened to come across an intelligent dermatology software for imaging, documentation and analysing of skin conditions including skin cancer. This smart dermatology system called DermEngine is powered by AI. DermEngine is mainly for dermatologist while MoleScope is for the patient. It syncs seamlessly across iOS, Android, Mac, Web, Linux and so on. Patients submit images through the patient app or connect directly via video consultation with a professional dermatologist.

There’s also an app called SkinVision that allows you to take pictures of your own moles; it then uses computer algorithms to give you assessment of that mole. Surprisingly, the same technology that suggests friends for you to tag in photos on social media could provide an exciting new tools to help dermatologists diagnose skin cancer whether it is malignant or benign.

AI CHALLENGES.

“The healthcare industry has been slow to adopt digital technologies, putting it in a weak position when it comes to giving sufficient training data, IT malfunction, deploying AI”.

Many believe that with a large case loads, it can lead to a deadly human errors. In light of that, we should get to realize that there are things AI can do and widely some other things AI cannot do. But successful adoption of AI in healthcare can only be achieved by addressing anxieties felt by the general population. Reassurance is needed that AI will not infringe on human autonomy and that it will augment rather than replace individuals.

“I don’t think the “man versus machine” framing of AI and Machine Learning is correct. It’s going to be more like AI is going to support medicine and make medicine even better” Dr. Adamson said. Deploying AI in Healthcare, the industry can achieve a very significant cost saving. More importantly, the technology has the potential to improve treatment and to ultimately save lives giving practitioners a moral imperative to act.

With any good technology, there’d be a danger it could run into the wrong hands. It’s up to all of us to know that AI is developed responsibly for social good.

Name: Kolawole Precious

Institution: Obafemi Awolowo University.

GI Code: Healthcare and HiTech. Robotics/IoT/AI

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