Healthcare AI investment will shift to these 5 areas in the next 2 years

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace of artificial intelligence adoption, and healthcare leaders are confident AI can help solve some of today’s toughest challenges, including COVID-19 tracking and vaccines.

Healthcare and life sciences (56%) business leaders report that AI initiatives have delivered more value than expected for their organizations. However, life sciences companies seem to be struggling to select the best AI technologies, according to 73% of executives.

As the U.S. continues to navigate the pandemic, life sciences business leaders are overwhelmingly confident in AI’s ability to monitor the spread of COVID-19 cases (94%), help with vaccine development (90%) and aid vaccine distribution (90%).

KPMG’s AI survey is based on feedback from 950 business or IT decision-makers across seven industries, with 100 respondents each from healthcare and life sciences companies.

Despite the optimism about the potential for AI, executives across industries believe more controls are needed and overwhelmingly believe the government has a role to play in regulating AI technology. The majority of life sciences (86%) and healthcare (84%) executives say the government should be involved in regulating AI technology.

Future AI investment

Healthcare organizations are ramping up their investments in AI in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a Deloitte survey, nearly 3 in 4 healthcare organizations said they expect to increase their AI funding, with executives citing making processes more efficient as the top outcome they are trying to achieve with AI.

Healthcare executives say current AI investments at their organizations have focused on electronic health record (EHR) management and diagnosis.

To date, the technology has proved its value in reducing errors and improving medical outcomes for patients, according to executives. Around 40% of healthcare executives said AI technology has helped with patient engagement and also to improve clinical quality. About a third of executives said AI has improved administrative efficiency. Only 18% said the technology helped uncover new revenue opportunities.

But AI investments will shift over the next two years to prioritize telemedicine (38%), robotic tasks such as process automation (37%) and delivery of patient care (36%), the survey found. Clinical trials and diagnosis rounded out the top five investment areas.

At life sciences companies, AI is primarily deployed during the drug development process to improve record-keeping and the application process, the survey found. Companies also have leveraged AI to help with clinical trial site selection.

Moving forward, pharmaceutical companies will likely focus their AI investments on discovering new revenue opportunities in the next two years, a pivot from their current strategy focusing on increasing profitability of existing products, according to the survey. About half of life sciences executives say their organizations plan to leverage AI to reduce administrative costs, analyze patient data and accelerate clinical trials.

Industry stakeholders are taking steps to advance the use of AI and machine learning in healthcare.

Source: www.fiercehealthcare.com