Abstract
Technology in
Healthcare is the use of systematic information for functional purposes in
healthcare. Technology for all intent and purpose has been a part of various
industries and our daily lives for decades and with its ever-advancing
capabilities, a constantly increasing presence should be expected and the
paper’s focus being its use in health and welfare of individuals. From
activities as relatively menial as
taking body temperature to full-on surgeries on human beings; the said
advancements in healthcare technology has led to inventions of not only
human-operated devices but to systems that do not require humans to operate. For example, in the past, one would need to
go to the hospital to have one’s blood sugar level and heart rate checked, but
now there are devices like the Omnipod and FitBit capable of all that and much
more without human operation. As humans are innately habitual beings, the
changes being brought to healthcare through the use of Artificial Intelligence
are sometimes resisted. Reasons range from “Ethics” to “Increase in
Unemployment rate due to AI replacing Humans” to “Algorithms can not mimic
consciousness” to “Widening the economic gap between Business Owners and
Workers” and so on. Though there are also those vehemently in support of
increased use of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare. Despite the divided
reactions, Artificial Intelligence is here to stay.
Outline
Abstract 2
Introduction 4
Artificial Intelligence
6
State of Healthcare
Today 8
Artificial Intelligence
in Healthcare: Pros and Cons 10
Managing Expectations
Within and Without Healthcare System 12
Bottom-line
Drivers
15
Future of Artificial
Intelligence in Healthcare 15
Conclusion
17
References
20
Bibliography
21
Introduction
Health is the condition
of one’s physical and mental state. Monitoring one’s health is a lifelong
commitment to ensure avoidance of malady, but in an eventuality seek treatment
and cure for the disease(s).
Technology is the
application of scientific knowledge, a branch of engineering and applied
sciences for practical purposes, for the development of machinery and
equipment. Going by Arthur “Technology is a means to fulfill a human purpose”
(2009).
Technology and Health
intersection started centuries ago, the point where technology was used in
improving or maintaining the health of people; some notable points from recent
centuries includes but are not limited to: “the advent of glasses in Italy
(1752), invention of stethoscope by a healthcare professional (1815), Wilhelm C
Röntgen, a physicist from Germany, came up with the X-ray (1895), W. Einthoven,
a doctor from Netherlands devised the initial working electrocardiogram (1903),
Willem J. Kolff, a Dutch physician, built the first dialysis machine (1943),
Ultrasound- Doppler monitor used on a woman's abdomen to detect fetal heartbeat
(1958), M.R.I, (1978)” (Bakalar et al, 2012).
How, what, and when
data is collected is pivotal to the extent of functionality of technology in
healthcare, The Electronic Medical Records has been central to this
development.
Data collection has
exponentially aided health through technology, by ensuring the compiling of
loads and loads of data, which is then used for the improvement of patient’s
health in various ways and the increased patient involvement in their own care.
For example, Technology has gotten healthcare providers access to real-time patients’
information to help in making the right decision at the right time, which is
ultimately time saving and an improvement in health for the patient.
In addition, Technology
enabled Data collection has allowed healthcare professionals the ability to
accumulate results plus records from laboratory tests and vital signs with
other important client data into a main area/system, this in itself has transformed
the care to be expected by clients and the actual care they get when they go to
a hospital, pharmacy, urgent care, ambulatory services and other forms of
service.
An eventuality of data
collection software upgrade and advancements is higher efficiency in the
collection and storage of data which means that vast online resources of
medical historical data are available to those in healthcare research and
development, who are looking into new methods of studying trends and this increases
the rate plus frequency of breakthroughs in the industry.
Technology in health
has gone from being only “man operated machinery and equipment” that assist
procedures to full fledge “self-operating” or automation work, these are called
Artificial Intelligence because they mimic life form, that is, man.
Artificial
Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence
started small, as a way to solve simple mathematics and logic problems, evolved
into “knowledge representation” and now its current state of “expert systems” it
has spread into many industries including health and now in various aspects of
health pertaining directly to patients and patient care
Examples are Robot for
Interactive Body Assistance RIBA for helping patients move around (not wheel
chair).
When a patient sees
below 20 degrees outside of central vision due to loss of peripheral vision
they are considered legally blind, there is new technology called artificial
retinas (chip implant and glasses) that can adjust and replace functionality to
full vision.
Patients without a
pacemaker will not live full lives and are restricted in their actions, due to
a risk of their heart beat and rhythm loosing sync” (Reed, 2017).
Patients without arms
and/or legs, with the aid of technology can now neurally control
state-of-the-art prosthetic limbs
For the detection of
sleep apnea, Motio HW is a personalized A.I. which studies the wearer and
improves sleeping quality (“The 10 Best Health”, n.d.)
Medical devices and wearable
are now available for patients’ use to monitor and record basic bodily function
and movement. The smart phone provides a platform for thousands of software
applications with healthcare functions, there is an application for monitoring
menstrual cycle for women, complete with alert and dietary advice, there is
another for tracking personal hydration level, even some for mental health like
“Headspace” for motivation, relaxation and focus etcetera. Over time they are
increasing in their complexity and functions for example fitbit, Samsung gear, Motiv
ring, Apple nike sensor, Smart Nicotine Patch and others.
Medical devices through their trackers and the
Internet of things allows physicians and clinicians tracks patient’s welfare
even location, this ensures prevention and monitoring
Pharmacogenomics can help patients avoid
drastic mistakes like misdiagnosis, adverse reaction to wrong medication, through
use of artificial intelligence in genome sequencing; this could further tailor
medication and diagnoses to meet individual needs.
State
Of Healthcare Today
The healthcare industry
despite being a highly regulated industry, does not suffer restriction in its
access to technology and breakthroughs within the sphere. Technology has become
part and parcel of every facet of the industry from diagnosis to provision of
healthcare, to the billing of patients, to records, to supplier relationships,
to third party; it is an intertwined relationship. Though worthy to note that,
these breakthroughs are subject to F.D.A. approval before use by patients.
Even with the
continuous shift of power among the players: from patient and provider to payor
(insurance companies, government, employers, H.M.O. etcetera), the relevance, continued
use and reliance on technology has not waned in the past decades.
Infact the paradigm
shifting changes come hand in hand with technology advancements, be it in
response to the technology advancement or technology advancements instigates
the change. For example, moving out of fee-for-service based reimbursement to
value-based reimbursement requires analytics and tools to aid performance
measurement, monitoring, even improvement on the side of the provider.
Communication in
today’s healthcare industry has become quite improved for all parties involved,
the doctors, nurses, pharmacists and clinicians go through their day/work with
handheld computers to communicate on patient’s condition, the suppliers use
electronic messaging, phone calls, tracking tools and others to arrange
supplies and shipments, patients can call for ambulance services on their
mobile phone from various locations with any health issues, even for those
patients healthcare professionals can not access technology has ensured they have access- telehealth/telemedicine
allows for face-to-face clinical services to be brought to them through
teleconsulting. Patients also use apps to rate services which is the basis for
certain hospital rating systems. There are even self-functioning devices that
communicate with the physician on behalf of the patient for example the pace
maker.
There are many more
advances in healthcare due to technology that have contributed in the work
towards better patient health. Such as, “Food and Drug Administration approved first
digital pill in the U.S.. In China, some researchers made gene-edited embryos
(first of a kind). Amazon has joined the healthcare industry with a bang, Bill
Gate’s company has opened a healthcare division. (“What To Expect”, 2018)
Proactivity for health
improvement has increasingly started to incorporate artificial intelligence,
companies are adding technology to their employee work-life balance goals
through wearable technology. Studies have shown healthy staff produce optimal
output, have less absent days from work due to illness and have higher job
satisfaction rates than unhealthy employee. Also companies spend less on staff
health.
Companies like Google,
John & Johnson lead the charge; Last year, UnitedHealth in collaboration
with Qualcomm, Samsung and Quarim started a national wellness program using wearable
health technology on people with certain insurance plan to achieve some health
targets, with the possibility of winning 1,000$ each at the end of program.
Artificial
Intelligence In Health: Pros And Cons
Augmented/Virtual/Mixed
Reality provides learning opportunities with minimal amount of physical invasion
eg it provides 3D human anatomy for test runs instead of cadavers hence more
and more medical schools continue to incorporate A.R., M.R. and V.R. in
classrooms as the learning with these media is more hands-on and immersive for the
students.
Artificial Intelligence
affords the patient cheaper alternative to certain care for example blood
pressure using blood pressure cuff which can be done at home instead of going
to your primary physician or urgent care, also patches for taking of
temperature anywhere anytime0 etcetera.
Artificial Intelligence
adds billions of dollars to the U.S. economy, due to tech innovations and
upgrades flowing into the market daily either as hardware or software. This is
done especially through the growth in G.D.P. of the health sector.
Artificial
Intelligence, even technology in general (with human-machine interface) is
still far from reaching equitable distribution among patients. The flip-side
being just because a device is highly accessible should not translate to excessive
use. For example, using technology by caregiving professionals on clients in
heroic measures when it would be kinder not to do so (Funk, 2011).
Technology gives
patients the ability to research their health and symptoms which may be useful
in determining whether to go see a doctor or not. Also, this has been abused as
patients tend to use unscholarly write-ups, misdiagnose themselves and still
not see a physician; even when required and because anyone can write on the
Internet (due to lack of regulation), the chances are high that some are not
even in the healthcare profession.
Artificial Intelligence
can be a preventive tool against illness and diseases, we now have devices that
can calculate how many steps a person needs to walk to stay healthy, sensors
with phones that functions as a heart rate monitor, machines for testing for
cancerous growth and/or its likelihood in a person.
Artificial Intelligence
aids in mental health welfare of patients but the obsession with digital media
can diminish social skills like understanding people’s feelings through
face-to-face interactions, even cause loneliness.
Technology saves time
with health procedures. Artificial Intelligence saves even more time for example;
the use of TREWS AI in hospitals has
shown/proven that the use of AI in diagnosis may be faster than other methods.
(Saria, 2016)
The unfettered access
of young people to health tools and information provided by technology, through
phones, devices, wearable technology and especially the internet has often
resulted in behavior/habits that are dangerous to the health for example a
national survey by Northwestern University called “Teens, Health, and
Technology in June 2015 46% of the teens ages 13 to 18 have been exposed to
anorexic and bolimic habits even 34% of survey population translated to
participation within 30 days. Worthy to note, technology has also promoted
better eating habits in some.
Managing
Expectations Within and Without Healthcare System
Bernard Stiegler defined
technology by calling it “The pursuit of life by means other than life” cited
by Thierer (2014). The choice to both verbally and psychologically distance
themselves from A.I. is quite often the topic sentence for discussions on the
subject, but with change/innovations, resistance is to be expected despite the
droves of people and investment in support and pursuit; which reflects that at
the very least, it might be worth our time given the application of even a
pinch of objectivity.
There are people who
have embraced technology with a caveat, “no artificial intelligence allowed”.
As if to say artificial intelligence did not spun out of technology. Some of
those reasons are:
Ethics: ethics is a
branch of philosophy focused on morality principles governing human behavior.
This subject area poses existential questions to various aspects of society,
actions, innovations etcetera. In that vein many questions have been posed to
this ever-evolving development, called technology, a couple being;
1. Can technology
really tell the difference between good and evil?
2. Can it apply
discretion or have empathy?
For example, if Siri
was told to call 911 in a jovial tone (as a prank), can it ever recognize such
despite constant upgrades and attempts to mimic human life, cognition and intelligence?
Menuge, Angus (Evangelical Philosophy Society’s President and a Professor) last
year in an interview with European Leadership Forum said, “the human mind has a
number of intrinsic characteristics, such as subjectivity, intentionality,
teleology and rationality which a computer can only simulate” (2017).
With the warp speed
onward-journey of the AI tech innovation exponentially gaining momentum, same
should be said of the ethics surrounding it. (Bharaj, 2018)
Widening the economic gap between Business
Owners and Workers is an often discussed topic, the fear being that, business
owners in the healthcare industry will slowly and gradually replace staff with
artificial intelligence, for example, the use of electronic medical records in
performing the role of book keepers like medical record technicians, clerks and
typists has made the storing of information on paper, filling in cabinets and
having multiple staff designated to these is a thing of the past. Hence with
less capital spent on staff costs, business owners can make more profits,
further widening the economic gap and even reducing the number of those in the
employment bracket. A corollary of this is an effect on the G.D.P and economy
through a rise in unemployment.
Technology advancements
gave us the making and use of dentures, for patients without teeth, same
technology later brought the regeneration of tooth in humans as found in
Cichild fish.
“Technology is central
to critical/intensive care, this grants clinicians a chance to achieve the miraculous
but it can also be self-perpetuating and a seductive force that requires
careful monitoring by users”. (Funk)
Technology gives
scientist a chance to engineer and even reverse engineer the brain to better
understand pathology. (Kraft, 2011)
“The internet has definitely
advanced research capabilities of people. The newfound reliance on search
engines like Google, with some describing it as Dr. Google, which allows you type
in symptom(s) to find out the disease with inputted symptoms” (Reed, 2017).
Another very popular opinion about the
Artificial Intelligence development is that of concern about a further rise of
unemployment, due to Artificial Intelligence taking over human jobs which did
not suffice the population in the first place. With the proven results of
Artificial Intelligence functioning in human roles with less error, more speed,
better quality, higher output quantity and less cost on the long run in sub sectors
like drug manufacturing; it is expected that business owners and managers have
started to increase investment and use of robotics in production. Services like
“Nurse-Assistant” are roles that have been created for robots in the last
several years, for functions like carrying, moving patients, because some
hospitals have found it as an alternative to relieve nurses due to injuries
sustained by human nurses during such tasks. There is fear that the technology
will further develop to replace nurses altogether,
Artificial Intelligence
is programmed to perform beneficial acts, but with machines it is possible that
the artificial intelligence may develop a destructive way to achieve its assigned
work. Hence the onus is on the manufacturer and operator to enter correct the parameters
into the artificial intelligence to ensure not only accurate results but a safe
route to achieving said results.
Bottom-line
Drivers
Technology increases
the number of patients attended to daily, process that would take longer hours
are now down to a percentage of the time allowing for more patients to be seen
by physicians; this will increase revenue/turnover.
There are groups from
various industries out there who are cross straining and leveraging on
exponential technology to impact the health industries (Kraft)
The cost savings of new
technology also a driver for investors and managers, though its returns is
often not immediate for healthcare providers to reap, but for patients, their
health and welfare is often cared for speedily without less strain and less
invasion. The quality of life is sometimes the argument for new technology
expenses, as the true benefits of healthcare is priceless, hence some
technology innovations are not ventured into for financial gain, quantifiable
or not. The observation with tech item prices is that; it is high when it first
hits the market, but in months variation or mass versions are often produced
and released to the general populace, hence its pervading the market is often
an eventuality.
Future
Of Artificial Intelligence In Healthcare
Health applications are
endless with technology.
The future of
technology in health will have a lot to do with 3D printing of organs, advanced
bypass machines, surgery robotics and various A.I. to help support patients.
According to Morse law, an exponential
increase in capacity is expected of today’s technology hence it is safe to say,
the number of lives tech will reach and improve will not be quantifiable, as
with every drama, there are protagonist and antagonist involved, those who
believe Artificial Intelligence is not the way forward with health challenges
and those who vehemently stand behind it. Still, the stage is set and it is
abundantly clear that artificial Intelligence is here to stay.
Conclusively the fact that
there have been giant strides in health through technology; is not in doubt,
there has been a steady decrease in mortality caused by minor illnesses, even
major ones are better handled for example H.I.V., sickle cell, polio, ebola etcetera.
It is however essential
to note that today’s Artificial Intelligence is actually narrow Artificial
Intelligence as each algorithm or device or program performs particular
function, the general/strong artificial intelligence encompasses a vast range
of cognitive functions as many as a human if not more, but this is yet to be
invented.
Previously, the
technologies were human-machine interfaces, even with that it was startling for
many people especially the baby boomers. In the past few decades, these
technologies have transitioned into machine-machine interfaces all the more
harder for a significant portion of the members of the older generation(s) to
grasp much less embrace. These people alongside some un-accepting people of
different ages are the loudest voices against Artificial Intelligence in
health.
The recommendation to
nay-sayers will be to replace technology-paranoia with cautious optimism, it
clear the advantages/pros outweighs whatever downside(s), both perceived and
real. This is not to fully dismiss their fear as baseless; technology leaders
like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniack, late Stephen Hawking and a few
others continue to draw public attention to the dangers of artificial
intelligence, which in turn has intensified the research into Artificial Intelligence
safety.
What if Artificial
Intelligence bots can be sent into war as field physicians instead of endangering
some of the already inadequate number of physicians currently available to
serve the population. The debate is ongoing while artificial intelligence
continues to grow simultaneously, this says one thing, technology might loose a
few battles but will win the war; because at the end of the day “result” make
the case for the Artificial Intelligence conundrum.
According to Bennett, “Health is not something that happens two or three
times a year, it is something that happens every day”, so if the use of AI can
make the process easier, faster, cheaper and better, then “let humans do what
do well, and let machines do what they do well, in the end, we may maximize the
potential of both” (2016).
Reference
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W. B., (2009). The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves.
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C., (2016, May 16th). Artificial Intelligence In Healthcare – It’s
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K., (2017, February 22nd). 8 Ways Technology Is Improving Your Health.
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