The future of healthcare will be driven by Artificial Intelligence.

The technological capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are far greater than most people think. We’re already seeing AI replace blue collar jobs like manufacturing, but many people are unaware that AI is also disrupting highly skilled jobs — especially in healthcare.

Surgeons, physicians, and researchers can spend over 10 years in school to prepare for their careers, however, students currently enrolled in these programs may graduate into a completely different world where their skills and knowledge may be obsolete due to AI.

Here are 6 examples of how AI is being applied in healthcare:

1. Cancer Detection

AI is more accurate than doctors and can spot irregularities better than the human eye. In the short term, both AI and human will work together. Long term, humans will be removed completely.

2. Mental Illness Detection

By using medical imaging with AI, we are able to detect mental illnesses better than psychologists. Enabling greater accessibility of imaging technology is the next step.

3. Drawing Blood

Think about the accuracy of this. It can’t be even 1mm off or it will miss the vein. Computer vision and robots are so well-developed that we’re able to replace physical human interaction.

4. Autonomous Surgery

I think one of the biggest barriers to completely adopting an autonomous surgical process will be human psychology. We’ll feel more comfortable having a person, but in reality, AI will enable robots to be much more accurate and effective… not to mention cheaper and accessible.

5. Dermatologist-Level Skin Cancer Classification

Watch the video below or read about it here: https://cs.stanford.edu/people/esteva/nature/

We can upload millions of images into a trained machine learning model to detect skin cancer better than leading dermatologists. Imagine how many other applications this technology can be used for.

6. Detecting and Diagnosing Arrhythmia

Yup…better than a cardiologist! Read more about it here: https://stanfordmlgroup.github.io/projects/ecg/

New technologies leveraging machine learning and computer vision are proving to be more effective, cheaper, and accessible than ever before.

Healthcare is one of the largest industries in the world and arguably one of the most important. If we can lower healthcare costs while increasing effectiveness and accessibility using AI, then you can bet that it’s going to happen. As the proliferation of AI-based healthcare solutions increase, the need for people in those roles will decrease.

It’s important for universities, parents, and students to understand the implications of how AI will impact the future of work in healthcare. My personal advice to those entering healthcare is: educate yourself on emerging technologies and understand how you can use these tools to advance your field.

Those in healthcare who understand technology, including AI and programming, will pioneer the future.

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