bSahar Arshad, COO, CloudMedx
While artificial intelligence suddenly seems to play a huge role in all kinds of businesses, one of the biggest, most powerful areas has yet to harness its potential. This reluctance is hurting everyone — companies, investors, and, most importantly, individuals of all backgrounds.
The healthcare sector makes up a huge part of the economy – and Share Market, IBISWorld’s latest analysis, listing the 10 largest industries in the United States in 2023, ranks four healthcare-related industries At the top: hospital; Wholesale sale of medicine (including cosmetics and toiletries); pharmaceuticals wholesale; and “Health and Medical Insurance.”
Healthcare is already notorious for being slow to adopt new technology. A recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research says the same is true for AI. “The potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to simplify existing healthcare processes and create new, more efficient ones is a major topic of discussion in the industry,” says. Study from McKinsey and Harvard University. “Yet healthcare lags other industries in AI adoption.”
The researchers put a figure on it: “We estimate that widespread adoption of AI could save 5 to 10 percent of US health care spending—about $200 billion to $360 billion annually.” That’s a trillion dollars or more every three to five years.
Working in this field, I see a huge force holding healthcare back — and ways to fix it.
protect privacy
Health care organizations need to reasonably ensure that any and all patient data remains absolutely secure. Whenever a new digital device comes along, important questions arise about what happens to the information it processes.
Of course, similar concerns exist in all industries. recently survey Cisco shows that businesses will increase their average spending on privacy efforts to $2.7 million in 2022, more than doubling from $1.2 million three years ago. Almost all organizations surveyed (over 90%) say that if data is not properly protected, customers will not buy from them, and that they need to do more to reassure customers.
But there are special sensitivities in healthcare, and there are many laws that require certain steps to be taken. For example, these companies cannot use a device that sends certain information to a cloud server where others may find a way to access it.
The key for tech creators is to design tools that bring out the power of AI Inside The private network system of a healthcare organization. For example, my team worked on a tool that uses AI to take on one of the biggest problems facing the healthcare industry: over half a trillion dollars A year in administrative expenses according to a recent estimate. This makes health care very expensive, and slows down the entire process, harming health outcomes.
Administrative tasks are filled with all kinds of intricate details. Get the forms that healthcare providers must fill out for insurers. With regulations changing all the time, these providers need to constantly figure out which codes to use and which apply to specific patients based on all kinds of demographic and clinical data. These tasks require enormous staffing to keep people accountable, which is especially difficult as many healthcare workers leave the industry.
AI can help by automatically discovering the latest regulations; sifting through records to determine relevant data; understanding physicians’ notes (using natural language processing, or NLP); and many more. But all this can only be applied to healthcare when a device is specially designed for healthcare organizations. So we created a solution that lives within the firewall. The information recorded does not leave the organization at any stage of the process.
it also means Difference is key. These solutions must be developed in such a way that they can be easily integrated into the existing technology of healthcare companies. Already overworked and overwhelmed, most people in the industry don’t have time to learn an entirely new system.
For investors considering healthcare stocksThe key is to find out how a company is approaching AI. Is it pursuing solutions to concrete problems? Are these solutions providing incremental improvement or are they transformative? Are they easy and secure to deploy, and easy for end users to work with? Is the company working to discover a broad range of technological solutions that will improve both health outcomes and profits? Ask for specific examples and savings estimates.
The more companies that move in this direction, the faster the savings will add up — and they’ll be reflected in share prices.
sahar arshad is the co-founder and COO of CloudMedx, CloudMedx is transforming healthcare delivery by using artificial intelligence to give patients, providers and payers the information they need to ensure the best care, avoid mistakes and save money.
The views and opinions expressed here are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
