How Artificial Intelligence Could Save Healthcare

They say the only two certainties in life are death and taxes, but you could also make an argument for adding rising healthcare costs to the list. “There is no end in sight to the amount of healthcare spending because it scales with multiple on the population,” Josh Makower, MD, general partner venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (one of the top 10 medtech VC firms), told an audience at the Medtech Conference in San Jose yesterday. Speaking on a panel about the future of healthcare delivery at the event hosted by medtech industry trade group AdvaMed, Makower went on to assert that medical devices and pharmaceuticals account for a relatively small piece of the healthcare spending pie. In reality, a larger share of our healthcare costs goes toward paying the salaries of the people working in healthcare. The problem of high healthcare spending, in other words, is a problem of high labor cost. To solve it, we’ll need to bring in the machines. “Machine learning and artificial intelligence drive a lot more productivity with a smaller number of people and [lower] salaries,” Makower said. “Unless you figure out a way to leverage machines to do some decision-making and even make a diagnosis, then we’re going to lose this battle.” Artificial intelligence (AI), of course, is the latest buzzword in healthcare, and in recent years companies ranging from IBM to Microsoft have dabbled in applying the concept to everything from imaging analysis to clinical trial ma...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Medical Device Business Source Type: news