26th February 2018
How the UK and Ireland can lead the world in Healthcare AI
By Cianán Clancy
Artificial intelligence (AI) in the healthcare sector is growing. The reality is that robotic surgery and AI virtual assistants
are no longer limited to the realm of science fiction; the technology is here and ready to be used in clinical
health applications. According to an article by Accenture.com, Artificial Intelligence: Healthcare’s New Nervous
System, “growth in the AI health market is expected to reach $6.6 billion by 2021” (Collier et al, 2017, p.1).
Healthcare AI may become the next major component in the vitality of a country’s economy. Specifically, the
UK and Ireland have a chance to lead the world’s nations by integrating healthcare AI into their current medical
systems, because they have the infrastructures in place to support the technology.
Healthcare AI encompasses many areas, from lifestyle management and wearables to clinical diagnostics. Specific
applications include robotic-assisted surgery – which integrates medical records with real-time metrics to
assist and improve the physician’s precision during an operation – as well as administrative workflow assistants,
fraud detection, dosage error reduction, and virtual nursing assistants that can triage patients and advise
them to seek the right level of medical care, keeping non-emergencies out of the Emergency Room.
The benefits of healthcare AI are significant. The technology can be used to increase efficiency. For example,
virtual nursing assistants can assess a patient’s symptoms remotely, delivering alerts only when the attending
clinician is needed for patient care. Administrative workflow assistants can use voice-to-text transcriptions,
write chart notes, and order prescriptions, saving time that can instead be used to treat patients. Further,
the nature of AI is such that virtual assistants become better as they learn. Over time, virtual nursing assistants
become accustomed to patient diagnoses and conditions. This allows them to improve their abilities, moving
beyond triage and towards medical expertise.
This is particularly applicable given the rising labor shortage within the healthcare industry. According
to Accenture.com, the shortage of physicians “is expected to double in the next nine years” (Collier et al,
2017, p.6). Health AI could potentially offset that shortage by supplementing the labor involved in healthcare,
particularly in administrative and evaluation roles. This would reduce the workload demanded of doctors, so
that they can focus less on paperwork and more on patients. The nature of employment in the healthcare industry
is shifting, and medical organizations need to evolve to best benefit from the use of AI and human talents.
Additionally, health AI improves quality of care for patients. The technology can integrate medical data across
platforms; the challenge is in connecting separate data sources as new technology is introduced, in order to
provide a seamless experience for patients. The integration of health data improves the accuracy of information
and increases the precision with which a physician can operate. As a result, surgeries have the potential to
become more successful and lower risk on average, with better patient outcomes. This includes a 21% reduction
in length of stay for surgeries in which a robotic AI was used. Choosing to adopt AI technology indicates a
medical organization’s commitment to improving patient care across the board.
Finally, AI has the strong potential to lower costs significantly. Potential savings include lower labor costs,
shorter duration of hospital stays, even a reduction in prescription dosage errors – which means fewer expenses
as a result. Based on an Accenture analysis, “key clinical health AI applications can potentially create $150
billion in annual savings” (Collier et al, 2017, p.1) – and that’s just in the United States. Both the UK and
Ireland are in an even better position to maximize on the cost savings afforded by health AI, because they
have centralized medical infrastructures in the form of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK and the
Health Service Executive (HSE) in Ireland.
With the healthcare AI trend on an upward trajectory, the UK and Ireland have the chance to capitalize on
this pattern, given the advantage that the NHS and HSE already have as established medical systems. One of
the most valuable commodities required in the development of advance AI systems is data. Both the NHS and HSE
have access to large quantities of medical data. So why haven’t Ireland and the UK jumped on this opportunity?
The answer is simple: privacy. Both countries have regulations in place designed to protect the privacy of
people’s medical information, and consolidating medical data could be interpreted as a breach of privacy.
Countries with less robust regulations on data privacy, such as China, have already started aggregating their
pools of health data specifically to help develop healthcare AI systems. However, while data is easier to access
and use, China does not have a centralized system to successfully organize a marriage between data and medical
technology. For this reason, coordination efforts in AI development for China’s healthcare system have not
yet been successful.
In contrast, despite heavily restrictive data regulations, both the NHS and HSE have the infrastructure in
place to benefit from incorporating big data into healthcare AI. The regulation of data in both countries seems
like an unscalable obstacle. However, the data stores currently under NHS and HSE oversight could be anonymized,
which would eliminate the risk of a privacy breach. According to the General Data Protection Regulation, personal
data is defined as information related to an identifiable person. Therefore, data which has been made anonymous
is no longer considered personal or private.
If the anonymized data were then made available to domestic and international technology start-ups, it would
directly benefit the UK, Ireland, and the healthcare AI industry. Developers need access to medical data because
AI applications use the information to act, adapt, and learn. These small companies could use the data from
the NHS and HSE to help develop AI solutions. AI areas in which these start-ups should focus their efforts
include virtual nursing assistants, which would benefit various healthcare environments.
The returns for anonymizing the data stores of the NHS and HSE and making that information available to AI
developers are potentially exponential. In exchange for the vital component of medical data, the UK and Ireland
should have complete access to latest in healthcare AI technology – at no cost. That may sound extreme, but
the AI tech industry stands to benefit equally. The start-up developers could then introduce their healthcare
AI to new markets, making the technology available outside of the UK and Ireland for a profit. Everyone benefits.
Healthcare AI is changing modern medicine. The technology is already being developed, and the necessary medical
data is out there. It simply needs to be made anonymous, so that it can be applied to healthcare AI research
and development. A cooperation between the UK’s NHS, Ireland’s HSE, and the technology industry would benefit
all parties involved. Such a collaboration would advance valuable science – which would translate into improved
system efficiency, cost savings, and better patient care, without incurring the potentially high costs associated
with new technology.
Reference
Collier, M., Fu, R., & Yin, L. (2017). Artificial intelligence: healthcare’s new nervous system. Retrieved from https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-artificial-intelligence-healthcare