The Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain Healthcare Revolution :

The AI and Blockchain Healthcare Revolution: What You Need To Know.

1. Introduction

Two of the most talked-about technologies today are artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain. While both technologies may appear futuristic, they are already in use in a variety of businesses. In this blog article, we'll look at how artificial intelligence and blockchain are being employed in healthcare and what the future holds for these technologies.

Artificial intelligence and blockchain technology are two of our generation's most breakthrough and disruptive technologies. Both have the potential to dramatically disrupt whole industries and with good reason.

The overall economic impact of AI is expected to exceed $15 trillion by 2030, according to estimates. AI is having an especially large impact on the healthcare industry. We'll look at how AI and blockchain are revolutionizing healthcare and some of the key benefits in this blog post.

2. What is AI and Blockchain technology?

Blockchain is a distributed, immutable ledger that enables several parties to transmit encrypted data in real-time, in a way that is shareable and transparent, as they commence and complete transactions. Orders, payments, accounts, production, and much more may all be tracked using a blockchain network.. Because they share a single picture of the truth, permissioned members gain confidence and trust in their relationships with other firms, as well as additional efficiency and opportunity. Artificial intelligence (AI) simulates the problem-solving and decision-making skills of the human mind by using computers, data, and sometimes machines. It also encompasses the subfields of machine learning and deep learning, which make use of AI algorithms that are trained on data to make predictions or classifications that improve over time. Automation of monotonous activities, improved decision-making, and a better customer experience are all advantages of AI.

3. How is AI being used in the healthcare industry?

Artificial intelligence is being applied in amazing ways in healthcare.

One of the most significant - and potentially life-changing - effects of new technologies will be felt in healthcare.

Illness will be diagnosed quickly and effectively, and medicine will be highly tailored. Wearable technology will be the standard, and we'll be able to tell if we're sick even before we show any symptoms. Meanwhile, as clinical studies get faster and more accurate, new treatments will be released at a dizzying pace.

We will, in the end, be our doctors.

1. Skin cancer detection

Skin cancer can now be diagnosed more precisely by AI than by humans.

An AI was able to diagnose cancer more accurately than 58 skin experts, according to a recent study published in the Annals of Oncology. Images of skin cancer and the diagnoses that went with them were used to train the AI. Human doctors correctly diagnosed 87 percent of the time, while machine doctors correctly diagnosed 95 percent of the time.

A doctor's ability to confidently recognize melanoma is determined by their expertise and training. As a result, diagnosis - and thus prognosis - can differ.

When assessing symptoms, AI technology could reduce the frequency of false positives, resulting in fewer patients receiving unneeded therapy. It could also help cut down on total wait times for surgery patients.

2. The state of your eyes

Our eyes are said to be the windows to our souls, but they're also a peek into our health. Early detection of eye disorders can dramatically lower the risk of vision loss.

Several programs are investigating how to merge existing medical knowledge about human eyes with artificial intelligence techniques.

Google DeepMind and Moorfields Eye Hospital in London have partnered up to work on detecting two primary causes of vision loss: diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). These eye illnesses impact about 625,000 people in the United Kingdom and more than 100 million people globally.

Thousands of eye scans were used to train algorithms, which were then put to work spotting possible concerns, allowing clinicians In a fraction of the time and with a better degree of accuracy, to recommend the optimal course of action. If the technology is approved for general use after clinical studies, DeepMind estimates that 300,000 UK patients might be benefited each year.

3. Drug research and development

Although artificial intelligence is not new, it has risen to prominence in recent years as a result of improved processing capacity.

Humans cannot compare to AI's ability to skim through data at a hyper-fast rate. The discovery of new medications is one area where data-crunching could improve healthcare.

The system can analyze data from a variety of sources, including clinical trials, patient health information, and genetic records, to anticipate how a drug would affect a person's cells and tissues, allowing for better trials and personalization of treatment. This streamlined method could speed up the time it takes for medications to reach the market.

4. Recognizing when a person in a coma will wake up

A coma scale is used by doctors to determine how much a patient's brain has been affected by trauma. The doctors assign a score to the patient after executing a set of tests.

This score represents the patient's prognosis and may be used to help determine whether or not life-support devices should be used and when they should be removed.

In a Chinese study, an AI system trained on brain scans generated a score that differed significantly from that given by clinicians. Doctors assigned one patient a score of seven out of 23 on a scale of one to twenty, but after analyzing his brain scans, the AI gave him a score of twenty. A score of seven indicates that the patient's chances of recovery are so slim that the patient's family will be given the choice of terminating life support. But, as predicted by the AI, the patient ultimately awoke.

By tracking brain activity that is imperceptible to the human eye, such as small changes in blood flow to the brain, the AI was able to get approximately 90% of cases right. Technology is an important aspect of the hospital's everyday operations and has assisted in the diagnosis of over 300 people.

5. Examine CT scans

The capacity of AI to understand both medical images and medical information could save radiologists and cardiologists a significant amount of time when detecting disease.

To identify ailments, radiologists must analyze hundreds of images per day, yet eye fatigue can lead to errors.

IBM is working on an artificial intelligence system that will help radiologists by sorting through millions of photos and comparing them to other patient data.

The program is currently being tested and prepared for commercial usage, and the IBM team is aiming to improve its accuracy.

6. Recognize signs of depression

According to the WHO, more than 300 million individuals of all ages suffer from depression.

AI has the potential to revolutionize how illnesses are detected and treated using technology.

For example, MindStrong, based in California, recently published a paper demonstrating that by examining how people use their smartphones, its system may detect indicators of sadness and other mental diseases.

"Data from a smartphone can provide information about how we are thinking, feeling, and acting," says firm co-founder Dr. Thomas R. Insel.

Their patented technology analyses how people type (taps, scrolling, and clicks) to predict a variety of cognitive qualities and mood states.

Artificial intelligence is also demonstrating encouraging indicators of being able to assist in the treatment of depression symptoms. Woebot, a chatbot created using cognitive-behavioral therapy concepts, was found to be successful in treating the disease in a recent trial.

In the study, For two weeks, 70 persons between the ages of 18 and 28 were randomly assigned to one of two Woebots. (up to 20 sessions) or the National Institute of Mental Health e-book. Throughout the study, depression symptoms in the Woebot group decreased dramatically.

Woebot was "surprisingly useful," according to a Business Insider journalist who tested it.

7. Doctors who are robots

Doctors undergo extensive training, studying everything there is to know about the human body and the wide range of ailments and disorders that can affect it. They must also stay up with current research published in medical journals as well as medicine development.

Researchers in China demonstrated how a robot may assist doctors in retrieving this data by memorizing everything for them.

4. How is Blockchain being used in the healthcare industry?

In healthcare, blockchain is all about cutting out the middlemen. It's about enhancing the security of various healthcare transactional processes while reducing bureaucracy and manual inefficiencies, boosting service quality, and democratizing patient data.

Blockchain is a cryptographically linked decentralized list of digital records. Each record is known as a ‘block’. Every block has a cryptographic hash of the preceding block, which is a mathematical algorithm, as well as a timestamp and transaction data. Blockchain was created as a secure open ledger for recording digital transactions that are administered by a peer-to-peer network.

Traditional blockchain technology has been linked to cryptocurrencies in the past. It came to mainstream attention back in December 2017 when the price of Bitcoin soared from triple-digit to four-digit in USD. At the current time, the current price is hovering around five-digit in USD.

blockchain is not only applicable to cryptocurrency. In reality, as a secure public ledger, blockchain is exactly what the healthcare business requires.

Every day in 2018, at least one data breach of healthcare records happened, according to HIPAA. More than 59 percent of the US population's healthcare records were compromised in data breaches between 2009 and 2018.

Health businesses should consider using blockchain technology in the age of data security. There's a lot more to it than just transactions' - blockchain is about securely sharing data that was previously thought to be difficult to obtain.

In healthcare, various middlemen can be removed and mistakes can be avoided if the healthcare industry adopts blockchain at scale.

As per my study, 40% of healthcare executives see blockchain technology as one of the top 5 priorities in the industry.

Furthermore, by 2025, the healthcare industry may save between $100 and $150 billion per year in data breach-related costs, IT costs, operations costs, support function costs, and personnel costs, as well as eliminate fraud and counterfeit products.

5. The benefits of using AI and Blockchain in the healthcare industry

Here are five ways blockchain can benefit healthcare:

1.) Single, longitudinal patient records

Longitudinal patient records- compiling episodes, disease registries, lab results, treatments- will be achieved through blockchain, including inpatient, ambulatory and wearable data- assisting providers in arising with better ways of delivering care.

2.) Master patient indices

Often when handling healthcare data, records get mismatched or duplicated. Also, different EHRs have a unique schema for every single field- arising with alternative ways of entering and manipulating the only information sets. With blockchain, the complete data set is hashed to a ledger, and not just the first key. The user would search for the address- there may be multiple addresses and multiple keys, but they'll all yield one patient identification.

3.) Claims adjudication

Since blockchain works on a validation-based exchange, the claims are often automatically verified where the network agrees upon the way a contract is executed. Also, since there's no central authority, there would be fewer errors or frauds.

4.) Supply chain management

Blockchain-based contracts can assist healthcare organizations in monitoring supply-demand cycles through their entire lifecycle- how is that the transaction happening, whether the contract is successful, or if there are any delays.

5.)Interoperability

Interoperability, the very promise of blockchain, may be realized by the utilization of sophisticated APIs to create EHR interoperability and data storage a reliable process. With blockchain networks being shared with authorized providers in a secure and standardized way, that might eliminate the value and burden related to data reconciliation.

Other than these, blockchain can transform revenue cycle management, drug supply management, clinical trials, and stop frauds.

The road ahead

Majorly, blockchain’s potential for healthcare depends on how willing healthcare organizations are to make the specified technical infrastructure. Blockchain is expensive, there are some concerns regarding its integration with the prevailing technology, and there certainly is a concept about its cultural adoption.

But one thing is certain: blockchain has taken the healthcare industry by storm in the last year, and there are big blockchain investments. With such wide-ranging possibilities, it's no surprise that blockchain seems poised to be at least one of the key pillars of the digital world. and perhaps someday, it'll transform the massive data landscape.

6. The challenges of using AI and Blockchain in the healthcare industry

In a previous post, I discussed what blockchain technology is, and the way the healthcare industry may benefit from sharing information using blockchain as a secure technology. It all sounds well and good, but there are some challenges to the adoption of a comparatively unknown technology in an industry that's immune to new tech adoption.

There are such a large amount of upsides to sharing patient data in a very secure, distributed method, that it's hard to know why the industry hasn’t already figured it out. But, like many things within the world of business, there are some concrete objections to why it's challenging to share healthcare data. Here are several obstacles I believe have to be overcome before blockchain becomes the technology for the industry.

1. It might take a serious cultural shift

Currently, many doctors are still stuck on paper. So, getting them to travel from paper records to electronic healthcare records (EHR) using blockchain may be a big ask. for instance, doctors like leaving questions blank, a required field in technology makes this habit hard to interrupt. The technology isn't tough; it's already been developed. But the change management may be a massive undertaking. Changing people’s behavior isn't a simple task, for any industry.

2. Because healthcare is spread, it is difficult to implement.

Healthcare physician providers and insurance payers are everywhere on the board in terms of how different entities handle records. Without a streamlined system, like single-payer, it might be extraordinarily difficult to drag these entities together to adopt blockchain as a technology. Unfortunately, if any are resistant and don't adopt it, it reduces the usefulness of the whole system.

3. Some players aren’t willing to share

A classic example of this can be how insurance payers and hospitals actively try not to share data. it's a competitive advantage for hospitals to stay cost data to themselves. If they're forced to share with insurance companies, they could get different rates for various patients. it's difficult to share data in an environment in which these entities are for-profit.

4. Lack of focus in government

As we know, changes within u. s. the healthcare system is a heated debate and a change within the use of technology would take a fanatical focus from the Health and Human Services Administration, and their focus changes whenever we get a replacement President. So, it depends on who is within the White House on how Healthcare is managed. At now, four years or perhaps eight years isn't enough to create the shift, it's to be over a decade or more.

5. Lack of a central entity to figure out that

Because healthcare may be a distributed system, there isn’t necessarily one entity that may adopt this and force it upon the others. There isn’t an administration, per se, but there's the faculty of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME). Last year, CHIME issued a challenge to find a vendor ready to take on the problem of creating a unique patient identity. The winner would be rewarded $1M. As far as I'm aware, nobody has yet even applied for it. Maybe 1,000,000 isn’t enough of an incentive to tackle the matter, but the dearth of effort could be a challenge for technology sort of a blockchain, which many of us outside of data Technology haven’t even heard of.

6. There's nothing proven yet

The bottom line is, that healthcare leaders aren't visiting adopt it until they see a proven use case. And so far, nobody is willing to come back together and work on an answer.

Even with all the challenges facing us – I still believe that blockchain could be a viable solution to maneuver healthcare forward. In the end, everyone receiving and dealing in healthcare would benefit thanks to lower costs from the benefit of information transfer and would yield more patient-centered care. Unfortunately, this digital transformation will take multiple healthcare leaders, payers, and therefore the government to figure together and willing to require a risk.

7. Conclusion -

Overall, this idea highlights the thrill of world stakeholders, healthcare professionals, investors, and innovators about the impact of AI on global healthcare and the thoughtful approach taken globally to confirm this delivers ethical and trustworthy AI. it also highlights that this is often only the most recent view across the world - speed is of the essence if major technologies player to continue playing a number one role in shaping the AI of the longer term to deliver its true potential to global health systems and their patients

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