Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1198602
09.01.2020 8 OPINION Alexiei Dingli Prof Alexiei Dingli is a Professor of AI at the University of Malta and has been conducting research and working in the field of AI for more than two decades, assisting different companies to implement AI solutions. He forms part of the Malta.AI task-force, set up by the Maltese government, aimed at making Malta one of the top AI countries in the world Putting patients first with Artificial Intelligence W e all make use of the health- care system one day or an- other. However, even though there have been massive leaps in these past decades, there are still several short- comings. Health Information Systems, com- bined with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can make an enormous difference in the life of the patients while assisting health practitioners in their day-to-day job. It is essential to realise that the situ- ation was not always like it is today. Towards the turn of the millennium, the Institute of Medicine reported that around 100,000 people lose their lives, every year, in the United States due to medical errors. e tragic thing about this fact is that many of these errors are easily avoidable. ere have been several cases where doctors prescribed medications to pa- tients who were allergic to them. In these cases, the doctors did not notice the allergy note in the patient's records and this error caused the eventual death of the patient. A computerised system helps precise- ly to setup similar checks-and-balances within the system, thus reducing hu- man errors and making the processes safer for the patient. ese days, most modern hospitals already have such systems in place, but with the recent advancements in Artifi- cial Intelligence, they can now go to the next level. e following are some examples of AI systems currently being developed or used in our hospitals. ey deal with three very different aspects; the first as- sists in the hospital administration, the second helps patients in their care, and the third one supports caregivers. Hospitals are always striving to be- come more efficient without sacrific- ing the service given to their patients. Many of them are deploying medicinal robots aimed at helping doctors and nurses prescribe the correct medicine. Such robots are capable of tracing all the medication they provide to patients; they can prepare the exact dosage and double-check with any conditions spec- ified in the patient's file. A smart trolley, capable of navigating the hospital on its own, then delivers the medicine to the specific ward. Such a system eliminates prescription errors, saves the hospital around 30% on inven- tory and eliminates all losses related to expired drugs. Patients lie at the heart of the health- care system. Because of this, organi- sations strive to improve their service, especially when the younger ones are involved. Many hospitals are using Vir- tual Reality (VR) headsets to help young patients shift their focus; from the treat- ment which they are receiving to some- thing entertaining such as a computer game. is approach is known as distraction therapy and works surprisingly well; in some cases, patients reported a reduc- tion in pain of almost 50%. e great thing about distraction therapy is that patients do not need to take any medi- cine, thus reducing the risks of allergies, pain killer addiction and many others. Caregivers do a great job, but we all know that their work is challenging and in some cases, tedious. Because of this, AI is being used to facilitate those tasks which can be automated. e use of AI does not imply that it will replace caregivers, far from it. e human element in the caregiving pro- fession is still crucial, and there will not be any changes any time soon. Howev- er, AI will take over those tasks which require repetitive analysis and help the caregiver accelerate the whole process. A case in point is the study of move- ment in people, commonly referred to as "Gait Analysis". In this case, a cam- era tracking system takes footage of the patient's mobility. e physiotherapist then analysis the vast amounts of data obtained. is process lasts many hours typ- ically; however, an AI system can re- duce the time taken to a few seconds. Of course, human intuition is still very much essential to validate the automat- ed analysis, but at least, there is an over- all time saving for the caregivers. In this article, we only selected three simple use cases which one can find in many hospitals, but we barely scratched the tip of the iceberg. e healthcare industry uses AI in many applications such as in the iden- tification of cancer cells, in the process of drug creation, to conduct robotic surgeons, health monitoring and many others. What is important to remember is that at the heart of this transformation lies the patient. AI is the most powerful tool ever cre- ated by man, and its medical applica- tions will save many more lives in the years to come.