Healthcare Revolution and Integration of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Healthcare has long been attributed to human intelligence and judgement. Twentieth century has sown the seed for a revolution that has geared up the healthcare technology towards a phenomenal development. Healthcare has entered the digital era as a process driven by need. With access to large amounts of medical information from healthcare specialities, technologies, and electronic health records, its usability to improve the healthcare processes was sought for. Specifically, precise, personalized, and proactive form of healthcare decision support system has gained attention with the integration of artificial intelligence (AI). AI systems are capable of performing intelligent tasks akin to human brain. AI in healthcare in present day is the trendsetter for the future of precision diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. This chapter deals with how artificial intelligence has brought the intersection of human judgement and scientific data closer than ever. This chapter aims at unravelling the key timelines associated with health revolution and provides an overview of the integration of AI with healthcare, its components, impact, and challenges. AI in healthcare is a vast topic with lots of subdomains involving the components of AI, each contributing to specific needs in the healthcare processes. The chapter has briefed upon the role of each AI component in addressing specific healthcare problems in relation to the datatype used. Possibility of AI integration with traditional medicine and its promising role in drug design with respect to the unprecedented rise in new diseases is also discussed. As an end note the chapter also discusses the impact, risks, and challenges associated with AI and the future role of physicians. AI undoubtedly has induced an unfathomed revolution in the field of healthcare decision support and delivery systems. However, it also requires a lot of fine-tuning adding more explainability and reliability to the outcome of intelligent models to surpass the need of human intervention.