Can AI “nudge” us to lead healthier lifestyles?
That’s the question many healthcare stakeholders are asking, these days, as they try to figure out how to manage exploding costs by getting people to take just a little better care of themselves.
And according to a recent article at IoTWorldToday, the conclusion many people are drawing is, “Maybe,” “We hope so,” “There’s really no reason why not.”
Not surprisingly, a big part of the problem when it comes to new health IT is the risk – Dare we say the “inevitability?” – of overpromising and underdelivering.
As Scott Nelson, chief product officer and vice president of product at Digi International, a Minnesota-based Internet of Things technology company, put it, “The diagnosing capabilities for ‘AI-driven’ or high-computation-capability machines will continue to improve. But diagnosis is a comparatively small part of healthcare. The bigger problem is therapy.”
In other words, doctors can diagnose all they want, but if patients don’t act on their recommendations, it’s all essentially for nothing. According to the article, “a 2018 BMJ study concluded the price tag for annual adjusted disease-specific medication noncompliance ranged from $949 to $44,190 per person in 2015 U.S. dollars. The cost of “all-causes” non-adherence was $5,271 to $52,341 annually.”
Moreover, the writer notes, the cost of chronic conditions alone is staggering. “According to a Milken Institute report, the price tag in the United States for chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes heart disease and osteoarthritis disease hit $1.1 trillion in 2016, accounting for almost 6% of the U.S. GDP.”
The single biggest factor driving chronic disease is obesity, but “while awareness of this fact is high in the United States and internationally, the problem continues to worsen.”
Enter, the “nudge,” and how AI may help deliver it and get patients to take better care of themselves.
“Where AI or IoT will make a difference in healthcare is if you can build systems that can learn how to better coach, i.e. change the behavior of the patient,” Nelson explained.
Nothing is guaranteed, of course, but an increasing number of healthcare stakeholders are exploring ways to use tools like AI-enabled virtual assistants to nudge patients gently toward a healthier lifestyle.
After all, observed, Scott Nelson, if Netflix can convince users to watch programs they wouldn’t watch, healthcare-focused companies could become more like a well-intentioned friend or family member.
“Maybe your mother calls you every morning and reminds you to do what the doctor told you to do, or maybe you will call your mother,” he suggested. “The idea is to make sure you’re always moving in the right direction.”