Artificial intelligence, a pillar for the development of health: how can we be more effective in our processes?

Photo: Ben Kolde

Artificial Intelligence or AI for short, has an enormous potential to deliver a huge leap of improvement in global productivity. It is considered a pillar of future development and holds a large impact on entire humanity and the planet similar to that of electricity and steam power. AI can be used to improve and develop many areas of our lives and also includes the healthcare system as well. So, in this article, we are going to take a closer look at how AI enables us to be more effective in our processes, especially in the world of healthcare.

The newfound potential of AI

AI has been around for many years. However, since the global pandemic in 2020, the profound potential of AI and digital services has truly been on the raise. Historically, in healthcare, AI has helped the healthcare system from clinical decision-making and public health to biomedical research and drug development, as well as to health system administration and service redesign. The number of potential applications of AI is growing by the minute. It is important to note that there are many different kinds of AI. The one we are talking about is AI supported by natural language processing engines and machine learning technologies.

The global pandemic has proved to be quite a big challenge for health clinics all around the world. Essentially, an enormous increase in patients and the need for remote, online communication has shown that AI can really be used efficiently for these needs. So, how exactly does AI help our healthcare processes and processes overall, be more effective?

AI helps our processes be regulated at a faster interval

Many health processes are limited by time and the number of hired workers. However, AI works differently. For example, aside from all of the above-mentioned applications, AI can also be used to enhance many essential tasks that health clinics do on an everyday basis.

So, which processes exactly can AI enhance? Well, to begin with, we can start with the scheduling process. When an increase in patients happens, as it did during the global pandemic, the scheduling process becomes incredibly hard for many health clinics. When we add no-show patients on top of that, we can quickly see how things can chaotic very easily for clinics trying to manage and run their scheduling process. AI, on the other hand, has the ability to work 24/7 and perform numerous actions and tasks simultaneously. Some of the biggest developments of AI have been in the form of natural language processing engines and machine learning. Thanks to these two, clinics can rely on AI to perform many of the tasks including the scheduling process. Being able to process a ton of data is something that AI is particularly known for and good for. Furthermore, AI helps decrease the no-shows by immediately finding a different session for a patient who cancels or puts in another patient once a previous patient has canceled an appointment.

In addition to this, AI can also be used to help patients gather the necessary information about their healthcare journey which leads us to the next major process in which AI helps clinics and that is the communication process.

AI helps patients and clinics establish and maintain communication through new means using digital services

Digital services and communication are something that we are all familiar with. It is also another aspect in which AI helps health clinics. Communication with patients is an extremely important aspect of the health process. Patients deserve to receive all of the information they require quickly, easily, and stress-free. The previously used methods such as call centers have, over the years, proved to be quite ineffective. Therefore, health clinics have been looking for new ways to improve communication with patients. So, AI equipped with a natural processing engine has the ability to not only deliver information to the patients or respond to their questions but also maintain a proper conversation with them. This is because a natural processing engine helps AI analyze and understand human languages that it learns and also enables it to communicate with patients or people in general, in a completely natural way and not as if it were a simple chatbot.

Patients using various digital services can establish communication with their desired health clinics and quickly get the needed info from AI. Improving communication also means being able to reach more patients. AI enables health clinics to extend their outreach and communicate with patients in remote areas as well.

The pillar for the development of health - How AI has improved and helped clinics

In an overall summary, we can see that AI is a pillar not only for technological development but also for the development of health. Many processes that are considered difficult to manage and maintain such as communication with patients, scheduling process, delivery of information, and so on, can be enhanced and made more effective by the use of AI technologies such as natural language processing engines and machine learning.

No-show patients can decrease, the waiting times are lower, and clinics are also able to reach more patients while properly maintaining their scheduling process and not having any issues with missed appointments. AI in combination with digital services such as telemedicine, confirmation of appointments, preventive campaigns, and so on, can enhance the experience of patients during their healthcare journeys, and make it more accessible, easier, and stress-free.