The current general consensus is that AI will transform every industry around the world, improving outcomes and efficiency. But how will this manifest itself in terms of health?
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Can AI integrate seamlessly into our current healthcare models? And will our health and data be safe?
In this episode of The Big Question, Angela Barnes is joined by Dr. Ricardo Baptista Leite, CEO of HealthAI, the global agency for responsible AI in health.
Can AI save healthcare from collapse?
“AI gives us the opportunity to ensure that everyone can have access to the health they need,” Ricardo told The Big Question.
But it’s not as simple as just adding AI to workflows and everything suddenly works a lot better.
“If you adapt AI to our current models of care, you run the risk of becoming very effective or ineffective. »
Current health systems are responsive and focused on treating disease. In many health policy discussions, not just around AI, there is an argument for shifting our focus towards prevention and improving general health. We hope this will lead to a reduction in disease, days off and a loss of productivity, thus benefiting the economy as a whole.
According to Ricardo, this change in approach will not allow us to reap the benefits of AI in reducing the burden of disease.
“If we do nothing, our health systems will collapse,” he said. “They are not sustainable. People are getting sicker and sicker.
“We’re seeing a population that’s aging and has multiple morbidities. And so if we don’t completely change the system, we won’t be able to have the resources to ensure that everyone has access to the health they need.”
Where can AI help in healthcare?
Although Ricardo would like to see greater systemic change in order to see real progress with AI, that doesn’t mean AI isn’t already creating waves in healthcare.
“Even during the COVID pandemic and the development of new vaccines, almost every company was using some form of AI,” he explained.
“We are seeing AI in research and development, diagnostics and imaging technology – every area of imaging currently uses some form of AI – therapeutics, robotics and surgeries.
“When we think of virtual assistants – virtual scribes that support doctors in clinical decision making – even when we talk about the non-clinical aspects of healthcare in terms of fraud detection, financial insurance claims, all of these areas have the potential to improve in terms of outcomes, whether in terms of cost savings, but also in terms of efficiency, in terms of improving health outcomes.
Who needs to invest in AI to achieve better healthcare outcomes?
“Billions are being invested in research and development, but who will pay? » asked Ricardo.
“Well, if we want to ensure that this technology reaches everyone and not just a privileged few, health systems and insurance companies will need to step up their efforts. »
While the US healthcare sector relies on private investment and China’s is state-led, Ricardo believes Europe has an opportunity to strike a balance when it comes to private-public partnerships.
He also stressed that models for evaluating financial support need to be improved to ensure that funded technologies will actually work.
“I came across a company that had amazing imaging technology to detect breast cancer. It had the ability to detect imagery several years earlier than the human eye. So we’re talking about saving lives here.
“The company went bankrupt because the government regulator at the time, responsible for reimbursing the technology, told it it would take seven years to evaluate the technology before it could consider reimbursement.
“It’s not just about technology, it’s about making sure you choose the technology that can transform the system, but also creating a model in which it can scale and reimbursement and evaluation of health technologies is key to that.”
Who is responsible for AI in healthcare?
Improving health outcomes with AI also requires a lot of trustboth from patients and professionals.
“Where there is almost systematic hesitation to adopt artificial intelligence is healthcare professionals who are not adopting the technology, either due to a lack of trust – they do not understand the technology and therefore do not trust clinical decision support tools – or because they fear legal liability,” he said.
In most jurisdictions, medical professionals are responsible for any errors. Ricardo therefore insisted that AI should be used to augment or complement human labor in most cases.
However, he explained that for some uses, the degree of accuracy using AI is much higher than using human intervention alone, particularly in evaluating scans and images.
“This is a market where technology won’t be able to evolve if we don’t trust it,” he said. “The only way to trust technology, especially for citizens and healthcare professionals, is to have an appropriate regulatory environment and appropriate governance.”
The big questionis a series from Euronews Business in which we meet industry leaders and experts to discuss some of the most important topics on today’s agenda.
Watch the video above to see the full discussion with HealthAI’s Dr. Ricardo Baptista Leite.