Healthcare, much like other industries, grapples with the transformative impact of AI, facing challenges in data accessibility, exchange across various locations and with insurance entities, and improvement of quality reporting functionality. The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) highlights that unified EHR and improved interoperability stand out as the top health IT priorities for medical leaders in the coming six to twelve months.
In contrast to the ease of checking financial statements and payment histories in banks or monitoring YouTube watch history and using its personalized recommendations, achieving the same transparency and interoperability with personal healthcare data remains a significant challenge.
Democratizing healthcare, as Forbes Councils Member Rebecca Love highlights, might be a good response to clinician burnout and a shortage of available physicians.
“This precision-driven approach could significantly reduce the margin of error in diagnosis, leading to earlier and more effective treatments. With the correct data at providers’ fingertips, I believe the practice of overprescribing tests and treatment can be substantially reduced or even eliminated.” – Rebecca says.
AI has the potential to revolutionize healthcare, outperforming human capabilities in processing vast data quickly. Yet, challenges like privacy, ethics, regulations, accountability for AI actions, skills gap, and data silos need careful consideration.
“There are also structural challenges to the healthcare industry that make it difficult to go full-in on AI. Health systems tend to operate in silos and don’t share data. As recently as 2021, fax machines were still used by 70% of hospitals to share medical data.” – Love says.
Regardless of the challenges, the advantages of utilizing AI in healthcare far surpass the drawbacks. However, moving forward requires a collaborative push from the entire stakeholder community: medical professionals, technologists, ethicists, policymakers, business leaders, and patients.
Read the full article on how AI plays a pivotal role in making healthcare more accessible to everyone.