Written by Emily Stokes
For healthcare providers and patients, AI diagnostic tools have emerged as a significant asset in clinical settings. With the advent of AI, healthcare providers gain the ability to make more precise diagnoses and operate more efficiently, while patients benefit from these advances. The overarching result is an enhanced approach to healthcare management that improves outcomes and quality of care.
With ongoing pressure to offer better services within tight timeframes, healthcare professionals must rely on AI-powered tools to supplement their efforts. Best of all, this reliance is helping patients get faster results and better treatment. If you’re curious about the latest trends reshaping diagnostics, keep reading to discover how today’s advances are building a more accessible, organized, and precise approach to healthcare.
Assessing Patient Symptoms to Offer Diagnoses
Many clinicians spend valuable minutes gathering information from their patients to help shape a diagnosis in the early stages of an appointment. Although this step is necessary, it can take up a lot of time. That’s where AI can enter the equation as a critical tool to expedite this process. AI can collect information from patients, including symptoms and health histories, to include in their patient portal and even formulate diagnosis right away. Clinicians then receive this information ahead of time, enabling them to know which diagnoses are most reasonable and turn their attention to treatment details. In short, AI-powered tools can help clinicians save time and assess which patients need the most urgent care.
In busy emergency departments, AI’s ability to collect information and generate recommendations in a matter of seconds can be lifesaving. Algorithms have reshaped the initial steps in a patient’s journey, releasing work from a healthcare provider’s load so they can turn their attention to the nuances of a patient’s situation. AI-powered tools give health providers the confidence to make decisions that can serve their patients more effectively.
Enhancing Online Consultations
Telehealth has become another popular tool in the ongoing effort to make healthcare more accessible to everyone. Remote consultations can help with the management of chronic conditions and improve patient engagement. They can also help reduce the financial burdens associated with frequent in-person visits.
Some individuals may forgo in-person appointments due to cost concerns or transportation limitations. This action can have bad consequences if a patient needs urgent attention. Fortunately, virtual interactions can act as a preliminary step, and they have become even better thanks to AI. AI can gather critical patient information, highlight risky symptoms, and create reports based on the encounter.
Platforms like Doctronic, for instance, allow patients to interact with a physician-trained chatbot to arrive at a set of potential diagnoses. This AI doctor format gives patients the convenience of inputting information from the comfort of their own home. The platform can also suggest lab or imaging recommendations given the patient’s set of symptoms and health history. And, if patients want to seek further input from a human doctor, they can do so for a small fee.
For patients unable to wait weeks before seeing their primary care physicians or unwilling to pay for an in-person visit, AI-powered chatbots are a significant solution.
Improving Interpretations of Imaging Data
Reading images to detect changes or inconsistencies is critical in areas like radiology or dermatology. Even small visual changes within a scan could be indicative of looming health problems. AI has helped improve the accuracy of readings, which helps with early disease detection while minimizing the potential for human error. AI can work in tandem with human health professionals when reviewing anything from MRIs to CT scans. Individuals undergoing cancer screenings or seeking updates on chronic conditions can feel more confident knowing that both human and AI-trained eyes are analyzing imaging data for inconsistencies or abnormalities. Further, AI can catch changes in patterns from one scan to the next, letting providers know that additional imaging may be necessary. This advancement is not meant to replace the expertise of trained medical experts. Rather, AI is meant to serve as a collaborative partner for clinicians, giving them a trusted partner to offer greater consistency in diagnoses. And for patients, this collaboration means that health providers can identify problems more quickly, permitting earlier interventions that may save lives.
AI models are trained on datasets to ensure they offer the most precise readings, too. AI can improve image resolution to catch small details that may be easy to miss otherwise. And having both radiologist and AI readings can yield a more comprehensive approach to disease detection. Additionally, AI can produce radiology reports and generate analyses quickly, saving providers time and resources.
The administrative tasks embedded within clinical work can be time-consuming, but AI creates professional summaries for patients and their records. With faster turnaround times for diagnoses and proposed next steps, patients can trust that they are receiving a higher level of care.
Using Wearables to Predict Health Challenges
Many individuals are taking their healthcare into their own hands through patient-generated health data (PGHD) from wearables. Fitness trackers and smartwatches are among the gadgets anyone can use to collect information about their health and activity levels. These types of devices can capture data on oxygen saturation, sleep patterns, hydration levels, and heart rate variability. Wearables have come a long way from their origins as devices that were primarily used to track daily steps.
Today’s AI-powered wearable devices can capture data that can be used to develop health recommendations. And with the help of better sensor data, health metrics are more accurate. In other words, an AI-powered wearable can detect differences in exertion from walking to running and adjust calorie readings in response.
Wearables give everyone personal accountability when it comes to their health. But the advantages don’t end there. Healthcare professionals aiming to offer the best suggestions for their patients can harness the power of AI to their advantage. A wearable may collect data on heart rate shifts, for instance, that prompts intervention from a provider.
AI-fueled wearables can use data, plus a patient’s history, to predict health issues that a patient can take action to change. The ability to gather data, interpret it, and produce actionable suggestions gives patients the incentive to continue wearing devices that can positively impact their overall health.
Streamlining Clinical Workflows
Healthcare professionals don’t have spare time to waste when they’re busy meeting with and treating patients. And with increasing patient loads, providers need to maximize every minute and outsource what tasks they can. AI has provided great assistance in this realm, helping providers provide better care more quickly. Clinics can turn to AI for real-time alerts and help with prioritization of patient needs. And for clinicians juggling lots of cases, they can monitor patients remotely, keeping tabs on vital signs as they work throughout the day.
AI has the potential to save time by automating intake forms and visit summaries. AI can tackle repetitive tasks, like appointment scheduling and documentation. And AI can enhance documentation accuracy and flag urgent patient cases. When AI can integrate with electronic health records, it’s easier for healthcare professionals to update a patient’s latest medications, diagnoses, and other pertinent information, as well.
Ultimately, this streamlines tedious processes, saving harried healthcare workers time as they tackle their patient loads.
Building Healthcare Equity and Greater Trust
When patients face language barriers, they may be less likely to seek medical attention. In addition, language barriers between healthcare professionals and patients can cause miscommunications that adversely impact the quality of care. Clinicians can take advantage of AI tools to overcome this problem. Current AI diagnostic tools can read different languages and even demonstrate sensitivity to cultural norms within given populations. As a result, healthcare providers can better serve multilingual patients.
Healthcare providers must be certain they’re using AI without compromising patient anonymity of safety. This means adhering to established HIPAA guidelines and conducting routine audits for issues like bias against certain populations. Software also should be used in conjunction with federal directives regarding clinician decision support (CDS) tools. CDS tools are defined as resources that can help healthcare workers make decisions or diagnoses regarding a patient’s care.
All AI-powered platforms and tools should include clinical references to support suggested care plans or diagnoses. This certifies that all final recommendations communicated to patients are evidence-backed and vetted. When healthcare professionals abide by tight standards and protocols with their AI use, they’ll improve their care and earn the respect of the patients they serve.
Collaborating with AI in Today’s Healthcare Landscape
AI diagnostic tools have been a positive development for healthcare professionals navigating increasingly complex patient demands and workloads. Clinicians aren’t spending as much time in the early steps of data gathering and reading. Instead, they can collaborate with AI algorithms to refine treatment plans and help patients understand the best next steps.
More robust telehealth platforms and stronger imaging readings are among the contributions AI has made to the healthcare landscape in recent years. While providers gain more streamlined operations, patients reap the rewards of more precise diagnoses that can help them move forward.
Author bio:
Emily Stokes is a freelance writer with experience in the higher education and non-profit industries. She creates content for blogs and other online resources, and enjoys distilling down complex concepts through her writing.
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