With cardiovascular disease causing one third of deaths around the world, according to a 2017 study, it is little wonder that Dr Amitava Banerjee, a specialist in heart failure and cardiac services, is interested in how artificial intelligence can help to bring this figure down. However in the course of researching studies, he came across some promising developments but also some issues of concern.
Banerjee referenced Dr Eric Topol who has detailed the ways in which artificial intelligence in being used in healthcare. These include diagnosing or checking diagnoses of breast or lung cancers, looking at retinopathy scans in ophthalmology, and reading echocardiology scans in cardiology. However Topol did warn that: “We are far from demonstrating very high reproducible machine accuracy, let alone clinical utility for most medical scans and images, in the real world clinical environment.”
For Banerjee there are several issues of concern with regard to widespread implementation of AI in healthcare. The first is what he calls the digital divide. “If now everybody has the ability to provide their data, then how are they going to be put into the algorithm for AI?” he questioned. He pointed out that sometimes companies create symptom checkers for diseases but they have only been piloted on younger patients and those in better health than those he would see in his clinic. He also stated an alarming statistic from the field of genomics.
“In 2009 only 4% of the studies in genomics concern patients who had non-European ancestry. In 2016 we are not yet up to 20%. So how can I benefit from an AI algorithm where my data was never in there?”
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