Investing in AI could lead to a healthcare revolution

In the 21st century, AI has become integral to daily life. With AI projected to boost the United States gross domestic product by 0.5 to 1.5 percentage points over the next decade – adding US$1.2 trillion to US$3.8 trillion in economic growth – it’s clear AI is enhancing both life quality and economic performance globally.

While many fear AI will replace humans, in reality it’s a blessing in disguise. AI enhances human capabilities, driving better outcomes across industries rather than taking over. Particularly in healthcare, the transformation has been remarkable – AI has evidently equipped hospitals, doctors, marketers and manufacturers with more efficient means to improve treatment delivery and patient outcomes.

From streamlining administrative tasks and robotic surgeries to detecting diseases like breast cancer before symptoms appear, AI’s precision and automation have minimized errors and empowered healthcare providers and professionals (HCPs) to make informed decisions during critical care moments. AI has also expanded access to treatment, with the rise of telehealth services enabling patients to receive medical advice from home.

These advancements are not only broadening access to care, but also encouraging patients to seek assistance sooner, improving treatment adherence and healthcare outcomes overall.

What will happen if lights go out on AI in healthcare, one fine day? Having discussed the impressive effects of AI, envision this: What if, after getting accustomed to all the benefits, we are suddenly faced with an ‘AI-less pandemic’ where we are forced to experience healthcare in the ‘world without AI’? Would that mean a return to tedious paperwork and long wait times at hospitals?

With 60 percent of patients still concerned about AI in their treatment, there are still debates about whether we’d be making progress with this technology or still struggling to keep up with it in healthcare. Since the reality isn’t black and white, let’s dive into an imaginary world without AI and assess if the outcome on the healthcare industry would be a much-needed change or perhaps a much-dreaded one.

From progress to panic

As the world faces an unexpected crisis, HCPs are forced to revert to traditional methods of diagnosis and treatment, no longer able to access the powerful tools that once aided informed decisions.

The benefits of AI-driven algorithms, which sifted through vast data to detect early signs of diseases, are now absent, leaving physicians to rely solely on their experience, intuition and conventional tests.

Although these skills are valuable, HCPs struggle without the speed and precision needed to handle more than 33.7 million hospital admissions in the United States, leading to increased labor demands and rising healthcare costs.

In this scenario, patients become hesitant to pursue costly treatments and strict routines, leading to missed opportunities for early diagnosis and timely intervention. Without convenient care from home, wait times increase, treatments become more generalized and personalized care suffers.

As a result, the healthcare system faces greater strain, poorer outcomes and diminished patient trust.

As healthcare staff members struggle to cope with outdated administrative systems in the absence of AI, workflows become chaotic to manage. With piles of paper records making quicker access to important patient details difficult for HCPs during critical points of care, the resulting delays in treatment and heightened frustration make treatment adherence too tedious a commitment for patients.

Considering HCPs scramble to manage overwhelming workloads amid these challenges, miscommunication becomes the ultimate outcome. Teams that once coordinated seamlessly now face hurdles, causing patient handoffs to falter and care continuity to suffer.

Unlike before, scheduling appointments turns into a logistical nightmare with longer wait times, as staff members try to work diligently to juggle different patient needs amid rising paperwork.

As they struggle, the financial strain on hospitals intensifies as increased labor demands mean more staff are needed to handle the rising volume of tasks, ultimately contributing to the rising healthcare costs. With constrained resources, hospitals now struggle to maintain quality care, slowly turning the goal of healthcare into a source of frustration and uncertainty.

Unhealthy regression

Without advanced algorithms to analyze patient data, healthcare providers have reverted to traditional methods, making diagnosis and treatment tedious and uncertain. Devoid of AI-managed digital records, hospitals are overwhelmed by paper documentation.

The medical records department struggles with mountains of files, making patient history searches monumental tasks. Each patient visit requires manual data entry, increasing the risk of errors and inconsistencies.

With HCPs now relying on trial and error, delays in diagnoses erode trust in the global healthcare system. Unable to access comprehensive patient histories quickly, HCPs face difficulties making informed decisions in critical moments, often resorting to generalized treatments instead of personalized care.

Patients, once hesitant about AI, now regret their apprehension as the absence of technology leads to longer wait times and worsening health conditions. This inefficiency ripples across the system, diminishing positive healthcare outcomes.

Without AI-driven platforms to streamline data exchange and analyze vast medical information in real time, collaboration slows only to crawl. As HCPs struggle to keep up with the latest medical advancements, relying solely on outdated methods like journals and sporadic conferences, lack of access to critical insights leads to regional gaps in expertise and care quality.

With personalized learning opportunities also disappearing, physicians no longer have tailored recommendations for patient treatments, and now their ability to tap into global knowledge pools about the latest prescription drugs, treatment options and new diseases becomes even more restricted.

When relying on collaborative research, data collection and analysis remain manual and, because of this, prone to potential errors and delays.

In this AI-less reality, HCPs begin to experience frustration as they struggle to juggle medical research and quality patient care, ultimately leaving knowledge fragmented and progress stagnated.

A return to delays and unethical practices

Devoid of AI-powered data, clinical trials have now become complex and slow-moving, bogged down by manual data analysis and human error. Researchers and physicians sift through mountains of paperwork, spending months identifying eligible participants and realizing the convenience AI brought to clinical trials.

Without AI-driven predictive models, trials miss critical patterns, delaying insights into potential treatment efficacy. Recruitment suffers as physical outreach lacks AI’s precision and speed, leading to skewed participant demographics. Monitoring patient data in real time becomes arduous, with trial coordinators investing hours identifying potential adverse effects or anomalies.

Final data interpretation is now subject to human bias and slower decision-making, causing critical findings to slip through the cracks. As the timeline for bringing life-saving treatments to market stretches, patients suffer from existing and new diseases awaiting trials.

In this landscape of uncertainty, medical progress stumbles, leading to dissatisfaction among healthcare professionals and prompting them to view their careers as less appealing.

Pharma marketers have now reverted to traditional methods and are limited to reaching only a few HCPs each day through face-to-face visits and printed materials.

What once took weeks or months digitally has now stretched into years, delaying awareness of new drugs and treatments.

This inefficiency is slowing the adoption of best practices, leading to poorer care and uninformed HCPs, ultimately stalling progress in medical treatment. Without healthcare AI, unethical marketing practices have also resurfaced.

Sales reps are swaying HCPs with gifts and misleading data, shifting their focus from patient care to incentives. Patients are suffering, receiving prescriptions based on incentives rather than need. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical executives are profiting from manipulation, turning healthcare into a profit-driven industry and eroding its true mission to improve lives.

A call to action

Imagining a world without AI offers a unique lens to appreciate its profound impact on healthcare. By automating administrative tasks, AI enables HCPs to focus more on patient care, improving diagnostic accuracy and personalizing treatment plans for better outcomes.

AI-powered telehealth services and automated copay initiatives have expanded access to medical advice and made treatments more affordable, narrowing the healthcare equity gap. Leveraging AI’s ability to analyze vast amounts of data with precision, HCPs are empowered to make informed decisions for complex diseases.

However, despite AI’s many benefits, it’s essential to pair this technology with human judgment. Relying solely on AI could lead to significant oversights, as machines lack the nuanced understanding and empathy an experienced HCP provides.

While AI analyzes data and identifies patterns, the human touch interprets these insights in the context of individual patient needs. Without this balance, the hypothetical downsides of a world without AI could become a troubling reality.