Robots and AI are coming to healthcare

[marigold22]

The New Technologies transforming Healthcare

“Healthcare is about to change beyond recognition. A host of technologies are uniting to transform the way we treat patients and develop new cures – from artificial intelligence and robotics to virtual reality and connected devices”

“Jilani Gulam, chief executive of insurer Health IQ, says: “Healthcare now is at a similar point to when smartphones first launched. “.

telegraph.co.uk/business/op...

The paragraph that caught my eye is - - - -

……. Combining this data will accelerate the pace at which the healthcare industry operates, according to Alvaro Gomez-Means, worldwide chief technologist for healthcare at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Gomez-Meana says, “If you were to really crunch the data, there is so much knowledge available.

Up until now, everything has been done in many ways manually – each doctor is really applying the knowledge he or she has personally. It’s not really industrialised.

“If you were able to really digest the data, it would have tremendous power. I think of the model of air transport. If there’s an accident, within weeks, almost everybody knows what the reasons were and how to avoid another similar accident.

“Currently, that doesn’t happen in healthcare. Clinical pathways often take 10 or 12 years to change. If there was a worldwide lake of information researchers could use, it would have tremendous power – allowing new ways to discover treatments and to improve the treatments we have.”

I hope endocrinologists become redundant

Not sure if the link works. Will try again if not

[Hillwoman]

I hope this brave new world includes the harnessing of collected patient knowledge and experience, but I doubt it will. Then there's the question of which formal studies are included in all this data-crunching, and who does the choosing. But if it goes in our favour, then endos will indeed be redundant.

[greygoose in reply to Hillwoman]

I think they already are, as far as thyroid is concerned. Their lack of knowledge is legendary!

[Hillwoman in reply to greygoose]

[helvella]

marigold22,

They need to be more careful with their choice of analogies.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay...

Disappeared 8 March 2014. Cause/reason still not known.

If you were to really crunch the data, there is so much knowledge available.

Trouble is, if the data isn't being collected at all, it isn't there to be crunched. I offer you the example of Free T3 tests. Almost never done. Therefore what would all this data crunching say about them? I could spend the rest of the day producing other examples. Remember, they very often fail to test FT3 even in studies/trials where we would assume it should be done. Let alone, in the quotidian patient testing which is the grist to this mill.

Yes, there is huge potential. But we need to be very, very careful.

[cazlooks in reply to helvella]

they've stopped measuring T4 in Crawley, they just test TSH and if that is OK they don't test T4. The ridiculousness of this is sooo obvious!

[cazlooks in reply to cazlooks]

even the GP can't over-ride this, my daughter has had 2 tests done where the GP specifies T4 required, but each time it comes back not done

[marigold22 in reply to cazlooks]

Going from bad to worse

[LuckyKat]

If all information is available, then great. I remember years ago, when my husband first had trouble with his pancreas, three different hospitals had different ideas and it was only when he researched himself and got a referral to the John Radcliffe in Oxford that he was given appropriate treatment. Several doctors admitted not knowing what to do.

We've been saying since then that best practice needs to be shared - and quickly - so with the caveat over the quality of data, this would be a huge leap forward.

[cazlooks]

brilliant stuff, our system has been so antiquated for so long with catastrophic results. We moved house 2 years ago and half my notes are still missing; our new GP's only 26 miles away from our old GP and if they told me they were going to lose all my notes I would have willingly driven back and physically gotten them. Apparently, they are wandering around India, I wish they had taken me I could do with a holiday....

[Angel_of_the_North in reply to cazlooks]

Now they'll be able to lose your notes on purpose and blame it on an AI!

[Angel_of_the_North]

Hmmm. Won't be cheaper and Kryten's fellow AIs will soon be demanding overtime. Sadly, you can't reason with them and show them Pulse articles. Does not compute - not in my programming!

[diogenes Remembering]

AI can only deal with the information it has available, and with so much plausible sounding junk in medical research, with conclusions that don't add up, the dangers of "garbage in, garbage out" are very possible. Someone or something has to discriminate between sense and nonsense and an agenda inserted by the devisers of AI could very well contain a lot of the latter.Its true that AI can learn, but the information base has to be sound for it to operate properly.

[marigold22]

I guess I was naively hoping the medical papers Drs. P & S researched, would be included. Gomez-Meana says, “If you were to really crunch the data, there is so much knowledge available.