While there are probably few places around the globe where AI isn’t being anticipated as a potentially significant boost to healthcare, a recent report from the MIT Technology Review explores how across Asia, countries are emerging as centers of innovation in large part because of the scope of the existing need.
For starters, the report notes, across Asia one of the key healthcare challenges is a lack of providers. “Even in wealthy Japan, Korea, and Singapore, the number of medical doctors per 10,000 people is below 25, the lowest density in the developed world. In south and southeast Asia—home to over 2.25 billion people, over half of Asia’s total—the number of doctors per 10,000 averages fewer than seven.”
What that feeds into, of course, is a lack of effective healthcare protection coverage compounded by the high cost of chronic disease treatment. “Insurer Swiss Re estimates that these affordability drivers contribute to a $1.8 trillion health-care gap for some 40 million households in 12 countries across Asia—nearly half of which are in China alone—which results in tremendous stress on household finances and well-being.”
Given these and other widespread circumstances, the report says, AI is increasingly considered “an important and pragmatic solution for increasing the capacity and efficiency of healthcare provision” for system-wide enhancements including “guiding doctors through diagnostic processes to arrive at treatment decisions with greater speed and certainty; using machine learning to analyze increasingly sophisticated medical images to diagnose a wide range of common and rare diseases, often with greater accuracy than humans; and wearable health-tracking technology to support patients in maintaining wellness, and doctors in spotting risks and warning signs.”
Beyond its focus on AI, the report takes the time to distinguish between Asia as an overall developing region, but one with significant pockets of wealth and well-being where technology has long since taken hold.
For example, Padmanabhan Anandan, CEO of India’s Wadhwani Institute for AI, points out that “A good chunk of India cannot be called developing anymore.” It may be, he concedes, that India’s medical resources at a national level are poorly distributed per capita, in terms of human capital, facilities, and infrastructure, “and most poor areas are largely served by health-care professionals who are not fully-trained. Yet we also have good middle- class care coverage.” This mix, he believes, offers a unique opportunity to explore AI use cases for both ends of India’s socioeconomic spectrum.
Similarly, Kazumi Nishikawa, director of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) Healthcare Industries Division, argues that medical image analysis is a skill that is particularly strong in Japanese hospitals and universities. “You can find (image diagnosis) projects all over the world, but Japan is unique for the large number of images generated and the quality of doctors providing tags and teaching resources for AI platforms.”
Finally, like every other region of the world, Asia must be careful to strike the right balance between human and machine, the report cautions. “The increasing contribution of technology to medical decision-making is undoubtedly a benefit to countless patients across Asia,” it notes, “yet it is ethically imperative that technology maintain a supporting role to the expertise of human doctors and practitioners. Final decision-making responsibility must continue to lie with humans, to guarantee accountability in the health-care system.”
To that end, “AI developers should focus on making sure that AI is explainable and understandable both by doctors and patients, so that recipients and users of AI can continue to trust it and welcome it into their care.”