2024-10-24 07:00:00
MediTech and Healthcare 4.0: Artificial Intelligence revolutionizes public health and reduces costs
In addition to being an advantage for businesses, artificial intelligence can be an important resource for the healthcare system and for the entire community: appropriately used, AI can transform the country system as a whole, helping to improve public health, reduce costs and increase the efficiency of services. Let’s start by defining two terms that are used today when we talk about innovation in the healthcare sector: MedTech And Healthcare 4.0.
The concept of MedTechcontraction of medical technologies, represents the set of advanced technologies used today to improve the effectiveness of medical care and patient treatment processes. It is the meeting point between medicine and technology, and includes diagnostic devices, robotic instrumentation, artificial intelligence (AI) applications and digital solutions for remote health monitoring.
Healthcare 4.0instead, it is the term used to describe the adoption of these innovations within the healthcare sector, with the aim of making the care system increasingly automated, interconnected and personalized. Healthcare 4.0 has the potential to standardize the quality of the healthcare service between different structures, reducing current disparities: it is undeniable, in fact, that today the quality of care varies considerably between hospitals, often due to the resources available or the presence of more or less advanced machinery. MedTech technologies, such as AI, will allow us to move towards one standardization of care healthcare, offering advanced diagnostic tools to all facilities, improving access to care and making treatments more effective and personalized.
MedTech and early diagnosis, beyond the human eye
One of the fields in which artificial intelligence is bringing the most progress is that of diagnostic imagingthat is, the analysis of data based on historical sets such as x-rays, magnetic resonance imaging and CT scans, which allow us to obtain images of sections of the human body in relation to various pathologies. With AI, it is possible to analyze huge quantities of medical images very quickly and with a level of precision unmatched by human analysis.
This is particularly evident in the early detection of diseases such as tumors. Thanks to AI, today it is possible identification of the tumor in such an initial stage that they are invisible even to the most expert eyes. Artificial intelligence can detect microscopic anomalies which would escape manual analysis, making it possible to treat the disease almost before it develops.
AI applied to diagnostic imaging, therefore, not only increases the effectiveness of the diagnostic process, but reduces the margin of human error, allowing prevention more effective and a improved survival rates. This technological progress represents a leap forward in the field of medicine, capable of offering patients and doctors concrete hope for more timely diagnoses and targeted interventions.
Healthcare 4.0, how to use data to create shared knowledge
One of the main advantages of Healthcare 4.0 is the ability to collect, organize and analyze information health data on a large scale. Several European projects are working to create shared databases that include millions of medical records from hospitals and clinics. Having standardized health data facilitates their consultation and sharing between facilities, allowing doctors to access crucial information and improve the diagnostic and therapeutic process.
A concrete example is the European BETTER project, which uses artificial intelligence to create a system of federated learning among the databases of seven European hospitals. The goal is the cure of rare genetic diseases through sharing of knowledge from different clinical contexts, to create more accurate predictive models.
Thanks to this type of network, even small clinics will be able to benefit shared datato improve diagnoses and therapies for difficult-to-treat pathologies, accessing statistical data and a treasure of medical literature not previously shared. All this, with the utmost respect for patient privacy.
Ethics and responsibility in AI-assisted medicine
The introduction of AI in the medical sector raises important issues ethical issues. Doctors, in fact, take a professional oath that obliges them to make informed and responsible decisions for the well-being of patients. Artificial intelligence can support these processes with diagnoses based on the analysis of clinical data, but who is responsible for the final decision? The machine or the human?
Despite his abilities, AI cannot replace human judgmentespecially in such a delicate context as health care. It therefore remains to be defined boundary between AI assistance and the doctor’s decision-making autonomywho must ensure that his choices are always ethically valid and personalized for each patient.
Also not to be underestimated issue of patient data privacy which, as mentioned above, are fundamental to support the learning of algorithms but must also be protected with an anonymization process.
Finally, something obvious: l‘irreplaceable human empathyespecially in communicating the pathologies and therapies that the patient will have to carry out. Perhaps this can be a key: supported by AI in a more numerical and analytical phase of work, doctors and healthcare workers will be able to dedicate even more attention to the very delicate doctor-patient relationship.
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