While AI has indeed produced the expected wholesale transformation of other industries, the majority of hospitals and health systems have not yet been able to take advantage of it.
That’s one take on the message coming out of the recent World Medical Innovation Forum, at which an array of clinicians, researchers, and developers from across healthcare certainly weren’t underestimating the longer-term potential of artificial intelligence, but also weren’t reluctant to point to continuing obstacles to full and effective implementation.
In fact, notes an analysis at HealthITAnalytics, speaker after speaker voiced concern “that the healthcare system is not doing nearly enough to cut through the current hype and adequately prepare itself for the fundamental changes that AI will bring over the next several decades.”
For starters, experts pointed out repeatedly that “providers, payers, and patients will need to make major adjustments to the way they interact with one another and with the concepts of ‘disease’ and ‘wellness.’
Moreover, institutions will need “to reframe the way they think about the big data that will become increasing vital for cutting costs and improving outcomes: what types of data are useful, how data should be shared, and how algorithms can avoid recreating human bias in their results.”
And regulators will have to keep up with the rate of change by “adjusting privacy and security frameworks, paying more attention to real-world evidence, and continuously monitoring the safety and effectiveness of algorithms designed to evolve.”
“We are at a turning point in terms of how we can use data to support improvements to the healthcare system,” said CMS Administrator Seema Verma. “The timing is right for true digital transformation. Artificial intelligence is maturing. Data interoperability is starting to improve. The drivers of consumer-focused healthcare are getting stronger. We need to start having these conversations, and we will need to keep having them for some time.”
In short, said forum participants, AI will not fulfill its potential if its stakeholders are not able to look beyond the near-term hype and work to create an equitable, interoperable, and research-driven healthcare system for the future.
Access to large volumes of quality data is vital for the success of artificial intelligence, was the consensus, but the healthcare industry has a lot of work to do before data becomes a truly valuable commodity.