With each passing day, AI and its role in society become a more prevalent topic of discussion.
Artificial intelligence has already infiltrated schools and the workforce, with ChatGPT and similar programs being used to generate ideas and, in some instances, entire pages of work.
Though this is already a controversial enough topic, tensions become even higher when the medical field is brought into the discussion. Some believe AI could be revolutionary; others are firmly against the idea. Though this article isn’t meant to persuade you one way or the other, it will discuss both the pros and cons of AI’s presence in our healthcare system.
Pros
Perhaps the most significant improvement with AI’s assistance would be increased efficiency, especially when it comes to appointment scheduling and billing. When run by a human, scheduling takes an average of 31 to 38 days. Were AI to be involved, many believe the software could organize its own calendars and find available days within minutes, possibly even seconds. Not only would this make the process quicker, but it would also allow real healthcare professionals to focus on higher-level and emergency tasks.
Though already semi-present, AI in monitoring and personalized care could help patients keep track of their own data. In this decade, wearable devices and mobile applications are already used to keep track of data and provide insight, though many of them still rely on the individual to note at least some of their feedback. Updating this technology could help those of lower ability by tracking it itself, alerting medical professionals if needed, and/or providing minimal care to prevent small issues from becoming catastrophic, such as providing someone with insulin or doses of medication.
Another pro would be the lowered costs for providers. By doing the smaller and routine tasks, healthcare providers don’t need to worry about paying for employees to do them or buying their necessary resources. This allows them to put more funding and money into essential care, emergency services, and advancing research. More funding means speedier processes, and, hopefully, issues can be addressed more efficiently than ever before.
Cons
One of the biggest concerns with AI in the medical field is privacy and security. To better its own program, AI collects data from all sources, using and keeping various results to pick the best response. Not only do people worry about one big machine having all of their information, but keeping everything online makes information much more vulnerable to cyberattacks. One break-in and a whole hospital’s record of patients is exposed to the world. AI also makes adherence to HIPAA much more complicated. Errors with all that software become even more common, and health providers could easily be exposed to a variety of legal issues.
Some people refuse to become reliant on software. Many people feel close to their doctors due to the trust, empathy, and connection they’ve built up over time, sometimes spanning decades. AI’s introduction into the medical field destroys the possibility for any of that. Lacking any emotion with your provider could cause many individuals to pull away, feeling unable to trust the cold system with their private information. Rather than fixing issues, this could only enhance medical problems as people wait until the last possible moment to get in contact with a computer.
Perhaps the biggest problem with implementing artificial intelligence in the medical field is its habit of being wrong. Of course, this isn’t to say human error doesn’t exist, but computers have a strict code they adhere to. Where a person may learn from a situation and not prescribe a medication or procedure again, a computer would have no clue. It would continue to produce the same outcome until someone went back into the complex code and changed it.
Seeing how complex these systems are becoming, it’s unlikely someone would have the willingness to go back and dig through it each time even the smallest error was made. Building on the complexity of AI, this also makes it difficult to tell where a computer is getting its results. Sometimes, AI spits out an answer that makes no logical sense when paired with the question asked, and tech professionals often struggle to understand why it gave that response. In the medical field, it’s crucial to get as much right as possible, as a person’s life could be on the line. Would efficiency really be worth it if the system could regularly make large-scale errors? Only time will tell what healthcare providers will choose.
