An update to the blog “AI and Big Data: Two Key Aspects of Future Digital Growth”

Artificial intelligence and big data have their own role to play, Healthcare sector undergoing an incredible digital transformation. While document conversion services are of great use in converting paper records to electronic format, recent technologies are providing healthcare industry with more advanced options to stay competitive. Healthcare providers have to manage more and more precise data now than ever before and this data is crucial to transform both the way patients and doctors communicate and the ways that providers can collect patient data.

Several reports prove that transformation to digital mode using AI and Big data is vastly improving disease detection and chronic illness management.

Big data from large patient populations and other reliable sources is assisting researchers, scientists and pharmaceuticals to study different diseases and develop new treatments for diseases that currently do not have one. Huge data collected from patients can also be used to compare to historic groups of patients who have been diagnosed and treated for diseases, and determine the course of treatments that will likely have the most effective outcome.

Artificial Intelligence includes everything from applications, systems, and algorithms to devices healthcare providers use to provide treatments based on computer analysis and big data. Advanced medicine comes with additional AI support which includes robot-assisted surgery units, diagnostics algorithms, drug research algorithms as well as devices monitoring the patient’s body condition. One example is an AI algorithm called LUNIT founded in 2013, which is capable of identifying cancer cells based on x-ray images and mammography images to detect lung and breast cancer. Data scientists from the KAIST University in South Korea, who found this unit also proved that its accuracy was 97% in detecting lung cancer and breast cancer.

In several ways, both these developments have a positive effect on healthcare, ranging from surgical to administrative.

How China Uses AI and Big Data to Fight Coronavirus

In its news section, Aljazeera discussed how China, the most affected country is using AI technologies and Big Data to fight the deadly epidemic, Coronavirus.

One key way China has used AI to combat the deadly virus is by installing thermal scanners at train stations in all major Chinese cities. This scanner provides infrared images of people passing through the station’s gates. As each person enters, a number will pop up next to their image indicating their body temperature. If the person is suspected to carry the virus, transport authorities would be informed by the hospital and this would also alert every single passenger in the affected person’s wagon.

Deputy director of China’s National Health Commission has reported that facial recognition and the real-name system will help them track down those who have potentially been exposed to the virus. Such technologies will help them to effectively control the spreading of the virus. The officials are also constantly monitoring people using advanced surveillance systems. Some of the cameras are equipped with facial recognition technology, which helps them to monitor all sort of activities.

For COVID-19 outbreak, the country uses big data by tracking information on people’s movements through their mobile phones and rolling out mobile apps that allow users to find out if they have come in contact with a confirmed coronavirus carrier.

Using the data collected, the country’s telecom company China Mobile sent many text messages to media outlets about people confirmed to have the virus. This message includes information about a patient’s travel history, time and details of the vehicles as well as the seat they travelled. In the early period of outbreak, such information also allowed people to identify whether they had come into close contact with confirmed patients so that they can quarantine themselves if required.

Another app “Close Contact Detector” rolled out by the government allows people to check whether they have been in close contact with any infected person and determine whether they are at a heightened risk. The user just needs to enter his or her personal identification details and scan a QR code to get these details. At the same time, there are also recommendations that the collected personal data should not be leaked and be deleted in a safe way after monitoring purpose.

Along with AI and big data, medical document scanning and data entry services are also supporting the healthcare sector in meeting their digitization needs.

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