London Medical Laboratory's Top 5 reasons to be fearful or cheerful over AI's role in healthcare

PUTNEY, U.K. - June 15, 2023 - PRLog -- London Medical Laboratory reveals five main reasons to be fearful, and five main reasons to be hopeful about AI's rapid growth in healthcare:

5 Reasons to be Fearful:

1: Misdiagnosis – Poorly designed systems can misdiagnose. Should an AI system recommend the wrong medication, fail to identify a tumour, or allocate a hospital bed based on the wrong prediction about which patient would benefit more, patients could be harmed.

2: Malicious use – AI algorithms can be used to spread false health information, for example about supposed vaccine side effects, or to target vulnerable populations with fraud or health phishing emails.

3: Data breaches – AI requires the storage and transmission of large quantities of sensitive patient data. That means systems could become targets for cybercriminals. Hackers could use health information to obtain drugs or even for blackmail.

4: Reflecting cultural bias – Software that's trained on data sets that reflect cultural biases will incorporate those blind spots.

5: Apocalypse! – A new paper by leading international health professionals published in 'BMJ Global Health' claims AI 'could present a threat to humans, and possibly an existential threat, by intentionally or unintentionally causing harm directly or indirectly, by attacking or subjugating humans or by disrupting the systems or using up resources we depend on.'

5 Reasons to be Cheerful:

1: Improving diagnostics – AI methods, including Deep Learning (DL) algorithms, are already used globally in the prediction and diagnosis of several diseases, especially where diagnosis is based on imaging.

2: Speeding up appointments – AI can automate some of the admin tasks that take up much of medical practices' time. This includes everything from booking appointments to queuing up relevant patient information before consultations.

3: Monitoring illnesses – AI algorithms can help health care providers by providing real-time data and recommendations. Health tech such as Apple Watch and FitBit could also provide professionals with essential data.

4: Predicting problems – An AI system developed by Canada-based BlueDot detected unusual pneumonia cases around a market in Wuhan, China, more than a week before the WHO issued a public notice of the emerging Covid-19 virus.

5:  Telemedicine – AI can improve access to care. For example, telemedicine services powered by AI can provide remote consultations and diagnoses, making it easier for patients to access care without having to travel.

In the future, AI could also pave the way for the growth of precision medicine. AI could study patients' medical history and integrate this with their DNA genetic profiles. That's not as far in the future as you may imagine. The first fruits of DNA-based investigations are already here. London Medical Laboratory's new DNA Genotype Profile Test is a simple, at-home, saliva test kit (https://www.londonmedicallaboratory.com/product/dna-genot...).