Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

Artificial intelligence (AI) is referred to as machines that can mimic human cognitive functions. It usually engages various digital methods starting from computer programming to deep learning, thus making use of the enormous structured and nonstructured healthcare data. Artificial intelligence is gradually making a change in medical practice by using sophisticated algorithms, assisting clinicians to mitigate diagnostic and therapeutic errors and also using data intensive analysis for early diagnosis of various diseases.

The chapter provides us an insight into the relationship between artificial intelligence and healthcare, origin of artificial intelligence, different categories of artificial intelligence and its applications in our healthcare system, various diseases for screening as well as prognostic evaluation and eventually the issues pertaining to the implementation of AI in medical devices.

The main focus is on the two major categories of AI which includes machine learning and natural language processing. The former analyses the structured data such as genetic or electrophysiological data while the latter deals with unstructured data such as medical notes. In medical practice deep learning is mainly used to explore more complex data. Cardiovascular health, neurological deficits and cancer are the most challenging topics in AI.

AI technologies have created a stir in medical research yet it is facing various hurdles in the form of regulations and data exchange. Thus, ethical and legal concerns need to be addressed before the deployment of AI in the market.