The Prospect Of Machine Learning In Healthcare Industry

The healthcare sector is one that is constantly changing. It can be challenging for healthcare professionals to keep up with the constant development of new technologies and treatments. Machine learning technology has recently risen to the top of the list of buzzwords in the healthcare industry. But what exactly is it, why is patient data so crucial to it, and what are some advantages of machine learning in healthcare?



What Is Machine Learning?

A specific form of artificial intelligence called machine learning enables systems to learn from data and identify patterns with little to no human involvement. Computers that employ machine learning are shown patterns and data rather than being told what to do, allowing them to draw their own conclusions.

Machine learning algorithms perform a wide range of tasks, including email filtering, object recognition in images, and the analysis of enormous amounts of steadily more complex data sets. Machine learning systems are used by computers to automatically scan emails for spam, identify objects in pictures, and handle large amounts of data.

The study of machine learning techniques is expanding, and there are numerous potential applications. Machine learning technology will be more and more crucial to healthcare professionals and health systems for deriving meaning from medical data as patient data becomes more accessible.


How is Machine Learning Being Used In the Health-Care Industry?


Machine learning is particularly useful for the healthcare sector because it can assist in making sense of the enormous amounts of healthcare data that are generated daily within electronic health records. We can discover patterns and insights that would be impossible to find manually by using machine learning techniques in the healthcare industry, such as machine learning algorithms.

Healthcare providers now have the chance to adopt a more predictive strategy that builds a more cohesive system with improved patient-based processes as machine learning in healthcare becomes more widely used.

Automating medical billing, providing clinical decision support, and creating clinical practice guidelines within health systems are the three most prevalent uses of machine learning in healthcare. In science and medicine, there are numerous high-level applications of machine learning and healthcare concepts.

 The first deep learning algorithm for healthcare was created by data scientists at MD Anderson to foresee acute toxicities in patients undergoing radiation therapy for head and neck cancers. When used in clinical workflows, deep learning in healthcare can produce data that automatically recognise complex patterns and provides primary care providers with clinical decision support at the point of care within the electronic health record.


Nearly 80% of the data kept or "locked" in electronic health record systems is large amounts of unstructured healthcare data for machine learning. These are relevant data documents or text files with patient information rather than data elements, which in the past required a human to read through the medical records in order to be analysed. Human language, or "natural language," is extremely complex, inconsistent, and contains a great deal of jargon, ambiguity, and vagueness. 

Machine learning in healthcare frequently relies on artificial intelligence like natural language processing (NLP) programmes to transform these documents into more useful and analyzable data. The majority of NLP-based deep learning applications in the healthcare sector need some kind of healthcare data for machine learning.

Just a few advantages that machine learning applications in healthcare can offer medical professionals are listed below:


1. Better Diagnosis

Better diagnostic tools for analysing medical images can be developed in the healthcare industry using machine learning. For instance, a machine learning algorithm can be used in medical imaging (like X-rays or MRI scans) to look for patterns that indicate a specific disease using pattern recognition. This might enable medical professionals to diagnose patients more quickly and effectively.



2. Creating New Therapies

A deep learning model can also be used to find pertinent data in data that could result in the discovery of new drugs, their development, and new ways to treat diseases. For instance, clinical trial data can be analysed using machine learning to uncover previously undiscovered drug side effects. This might enhance patient care as well as the efficiency and safety of medical procedures.


3. Lowering Expenses

Healthcare efficiency can be increased through the use of machine learning, which may result in cost savings. For instance, machine learning in healthcare could be used to create better scheduling or patient record management algorithms. This might help to lessen the amount of time and resources wasted on monotonous tasks.



4. Enhancing Care

The standard of patient care can be raised in the healthcare industry by utilising machine learning. For instance, systems that proactively monitor patients and send alerts to medical devices or electronic health records when their condition changes could be created using deep learning algorithms. By doing this, patients might be given the proper care at the appropriate time.

While the potential of machine learning to deliver care is still being realised, its applications in healthcare are already having a positive impact. As we work to make sense of the continuously expanding clinical data sets in healthcare, machine learning will take on more significance in the future.


Written By: Greeshma Chowdary

Edited By: Nidhi Jha


Post a Comment

0 Comments