AI Bias & Impact
on Healthcare

Introduction

AI in healthcare has the potential to bring many benefits, but also poses certain risks such as bias and inequality, errors and injuries, data availability, privacy concerns, limited AI scope, and professional realignment. Despite these concerns, the implementation of AI in healthcare can lead to significant cost savings and improved patient care. In the future, AI is expected to have a major impact in diagnostic imaging, drug discovery, and precision medicine.

AI in Healthcare Perpetuates Existing Biases, Leading to Inaccurate Diagnosis and Ineffective Treatments

Simplifying complex systems helps reduce difficulties

Potential Hazards of AI in Healthcare

Where the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare can bring many positive outcomes, there, it also raises some serious concerns:

1. Errors and Injuries

AI implementation in healthcare could lead to errors which could harm patients. For example, if an AI system recommends the wrong medication or doesn't spot a problem on a medical scan, it could lead to injury. These mistakes can happen without AI, but with AI, a problem with one system could affect many patients at once.

2. Data Availability

3. Privacy Concerns

AI in healthcare can pose a risk to patient privacy as it requires large amounts of data which is often collected from patients. This can create concerns that personal information is not being kept confidential.

Additionally, AI can sometimes predict private information about patients without their knowledge, and this information may be shared with third parties, which can further compromise patient privacy.

4. Bias and inequality

AI systems learn from the data they are trained on, and if that data is not diverse, the AI can have a bias towards certain groups of people. AI's decision-making process can create new biases and inequalities also, for example, if it uses race, gender, or socioeconomic status as a factor in decision making, it can lead to inaccurate diagnoses and treatment recommendations, which can harm patients and undermine trust in the healthcare system.

5. Limited AI Scope

AI systems in healthcare can be limited in their capabilities and can lead to inaccuracies or inabilities if they are only trained for one specific task. Having a diverse range of AI systems in healthcare is crucial for more accurate and complete diagnoses and treatment options.

6. Professional realignment

Some experts worry that reliance on AI could decrease human expertise and ability, causing healthcare providers to lose the ability to detect and fix AI mistakes and limit further development of medical knowledge.

How AI is Transforming Healthcare for the Better

The incorporation of AI and machine learning in healthcare has provided a vast array of benefits for healthcare organizations such as task automation and the analysis of large patient data sets for faster and cost-effective healthcare delivery. According to Insider Intelligence, 30% of healthcare costs are linked to administrative tasks, hence the implementation of AI can lead to significant cost savings by modernizing healthcare systems and creating efficiencies that are yet to be discovered. By automating certain tasks and making diagnoses more quickly, AI-powered medical devices and diagnostic tools can help healthcare providers save time and resources and improve patient care.

Future of AI in Healthcare

AI in healthcare is expected to greatly impact diagnostic imaging, drug discovery, and precision medicine. These tools can aid in identifying diseases, discovering new drugs, and selecting personalized treatments.

In 2021, the global healthcare AI market was valued at around $11 billion, and it is forecasted to reach a value of nearly $188 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 37% from 2022 to 2030.