Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a major trend in the healthcare sector for some time. AI is therefore playing an increasingly important role in Med tech. The techniques are used in treatments as well as in prevention or patient care. We highlight the latest developments for you.
AI and Med tech
For a long time, the use of Med tech was only accessible to a small group of experts. Nowadays, more specialists can use AI and even contribute to making artificial intelligence increasingly effective. Indeed, a new trend is that AI can enable so-called "no-code" or "low-code applications". This means that the development of new technical tools in the medical field will be even faster and easier thanks to AI.
One example is wearables such as smartwatches. These can be used medically and provide at the same time valuable data for AI systems.
Wearable technology
These smart wearables are also one of the most important developments in healthcare. The ability to remotely monitor a patient's status throughout the day or keep track of your own status is hugely valuable.
As smartwatches become more widely available to consumers, their potential for applications in healthcare should be noted. Smartwatches can measure a lot, making them useful in monitoring a person's health. Consider heart rate or more active and physical health, which becomes measurable with the pedometer.
Another measurable alternative that can track early life-threatening conditions is blood oxygen saturation. Smartwatches, thanks to specific techniques, can also be used to measure blood vitality in users. Healthcare providers can use this data to advise and diagnose patients.
Besides Smartwatches, Bio-patches and smart hearing aids are also examples of these wearables. For instance, Bio-patches can give a better understanding of a person's vital signs without the use of a Smartwatch. And AI can also improve the sound insulation of hearing aids.
AI in diagnosis & medication
Artificial Intelligence is increasingly helping doctors organise the vast amount of scientific literature. In some fields, several thousand specialist articles are published every year. AI can and will increasingly take on the task of information processing in the future.
Project Hanover is a Microsoft AI system designed to catalogue biomedical research papers from PubMed. This helps shorten the cancer diagnosis phase, but also in deciding on the right medication for each patient.
Some other examples of AI application in diagnosis and medication development include Project InnerEye, developed by Microsoft. An AI tool for radiotherapy, which helps analyse CT scans to detect pneumonia for example.
AI as the basis for robotics
Whether it’s smart prosthetics or the development of healthcare robots and other assistive robots, artificial intelligence provides the basis for this. Healthcare providers will be supported by robots in the near future. AI also creates new trends in OR. It helps doctors train new procedures in advance or analyse data in real time during surgery.
AI helps cancer diagnostics
For a long time, biopsy was the only truly reliable method of diagnosing cancerous diseases. Modern methods of histopathology rely on digital scans of a specific area that can be affected by cell mutations. Whole slide images or WSI allow pathologists to examine much larger areas of human organisms at once.
Although WSI scans are still used and useful, finding the desired results is very time-consuming. This led to the emergence of AI applications that can process WSI.
This AI solution helps healthcare professionals in the tracking of areas where potential cancer cells may be located. This greatly reduces the time for diagnostics. It also shows that the AI approach to WSI analysis produces solid results.