Can AI Make Healthcare Smarter, Faster, And More Accessible?
Of course, the modern era of AI began a little over two decades ago and IBM was an early pioneer.
One of the sectors that artificial intelligence (AI) will transform is healthcare. But if you think that AI in healthcare is a recent phenomenon, you'd be off the mark. The world's first AI-based 'medical consultant' was built way back in 1971.
A search algorithm was used to make clinical diagnoses based on symptoms. That's before I was born, so even as I feel I've seen tech evolve for the last two decades, the realisation that scientists saw the potential over half a century ago and created usable systems is a sobering thought.
Of course, the modern era of AI began a little over two decades ago and IBM was an early pioneer. Around 15 years ago, IBM bet the shop on Watson Health as Big Blue along with some of the world's top medical institutions took on the Big C.
IBM acquired a bunch of health data companies to get access to their data to train Watson on and spent around $5 billion on this. There were high profile partnerships with eminent names in medicine, like New York-based Memorial Sloan Kettering and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
In theory the idea was brilliant — use the expertise built at these institutions over perhaps millions of cases and leverage it to provide customised cancer treatment anywhere in the world.
Unfortunately, things didn't quite pan out that way, because data from patients in the US may not be completely relevant to treat patients at Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, an institution that arguably understands cancer in India and treatment regimens available here better than what a tool trained on US data can suggest. There's also the fact that the AI technology wasn't as advanced as it is now.
In the end, IBM sold off pieces of Watson Health for around a billion dollars in 2022. But while that bet didn't pan out, IBM is continuing to work on AI & healthcare, and many others are trying to disrupt healthcare using AI too. The race never quite ended.
Technology has also advanced, and I'm not referring to AI models alone. For instance, the COVID pandemic took video communication from something many would avoid to a mode preferred over face-to-face communication, and even those in small villages in remote parts of rural India are now familiar with video calls and often have 5G connectivity.
For instance, AI tools today can often deliver a perfect diagnosis by analysing an image and this is just one example of how AI can help bridge the healthcare delivery last mile issue in India.
We recently featured a story about an AI tool deployed by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in 2022 that scours the net for any news of unusual health events and may have helped issue more than 5,000 alerts of infectious outbreaks to health authorities in real-time. The tool has helped slash 98% of manual workload.
But when AI is the flavour of the times, everyone wants to jump on the AI bandwagon, and most tech journalists are overwhelmed with companies using or developing AI and looking for coverage. Everyone claims what they are doing will change the world.
So, when Fujifilm wanted to speak to me about Nura, their AI-driven approach to transform preventive screening in India based on their experience in Japan, I was a bit skeptical. But as I looked into it, I realised that the company had innovatively used their deep experience in imaging and medical technology with the latest in AI to deliver analysis that the human eye of doctors can't match.
To make it even more appealing to customers they blended the tech with a Japanese precision approach delivering a complete screening in less than two hours, and in a calming environment that's more like a Japanese zen garden than a hospital.
But whether the hospital or clinic you visit market it or not, chances are the next time you need a scan or even order some medicines online, AI tools are making the process quicker and more efficient in the background.
Meanwhile, here are some of the other key AI-related headlines from the past few days:
Only One In 10 Indian CXOs Say Current IT Infra Meets All AI Needs
Central Banks Using AI For Low-Risk Processes, Wary Of Cybersecurity
Skirting US Curbs: China's Tech Majors Shift AI Training Offshore For Nvidia Hardware
Google, The Sleeping Giant In Global AI Race, Now 'Fully Awake'
Microsoft Bets On 'AI Micro Degrees' To Upskill Tech Talent Pool In India
China Warns Of Bubble Risk In Booming Humanoid Robotics Industry
Grok Outsmarts The Field: Mensa Scores Put Elon Musk's AI Ahead Of GPT And Gemini
Perplexity Unveils AI-Powered Shopping Tool In Face Off Against Google, OpenAI
Till next week,
-Ivor Soans
