AI in Healthcare: Paving The Option to More healthy Tomorrows, At the moment!

Charming improvements like smartphones, the web, and social media have swept throughout the globe, reshaping the contours of society of their wake. At the moment, synthetic intelligence (AI) in healthcare brings each breathtaking guarantees and daunting uncertainties. Neither hype nor panic is useful. What we want is a sober evaluation of the true, sensible, and speedy options AI can provide to real healthcare challenges we face as we speak.

Regardless of the over $200 billion in enterprise capital invested in healthcare startups in simply the previous few years, healthcare stays fragmented, costly, and inefficient. Our life expectancy is declining whereas healthcare prices are persistently rising. Amid this backdrop, it’s startling to notice that as of June 2023, 76% of healthcare customers’ main want from digital well being is nothing greater than to schedule physician’s appointments on-line, reflecting the truth that healthcare stays one of many ultimate bastions the place paper kinds and ready on maintain nonetheless dominate.

Delivering a latest keynote on the Medicarians convention, I emphasised the immense potential AI holds to rework these inadequacies, making healthcare as accessible as ordering a pizza. Though this comparability could sound mundane, it highlights the straightforward, on a regular basis obstacles that stand between Individuals and improved well being. A placing 92% of U.S. healthcare expenditure arises from 80 million Individuals, primarily aged 50 and above, grappling with two or extra persistent ailments. The complexity of even routine healthcare duties is so nice that 53 million American adults discover themselves within the difficult place of being caregivers for growing old mother and father, whereas additionally managing their very own well being points.

But, for these residing with the commonest persistent circumstances, improved well being outcomes are neither mysterious nor overly complicated. It’s a easy formulation: take your medicines, get well timed preventive care exams, see your medical doctors repeatedly, and preserve monitor of vitals, and well being outcomes will enhance. Nonetheless, lower than half of American adults keep on with their remedy plans, fewer than 40% bear their preventive exams, and fewer than 15% possess the well being literacy crucial for self-care.

AI could ultimately deliver the glitz and glamor of gene folding, however its potential to enhance primary processes corresponding to appointment scheduling or remedy adherence is way extra speedy, transformative and essential. Image a future the place ready for a prescription refill or combating a prolonged name to your physician’s workplace feels as outdated as visiting a video retailer to hire a film. Envision a world the place eliminating paperwork and streamlining entry to healthcare can dramatically improve well being outcomes whereas lowering healthcare prices.

That is the place AI can deliver a renaissance of change, establishing magically simple, automated interfaces to healthcare, with out ready for the cumbersome and slow-moving programs to evolve. As a lot as well being programs ought to provide on-line scheduling, auto-fill kinds primarily based on well being historical past, and clear insurance coverage advantages, these require systemic shifts that, within the context of U.S. healthcare, happen at a snail’s tempo. To make issues worse, most health-tech startups appear content material to take advantage of the prevailing flaws relatively than pushing for actual, transformative enhancements.  

AI provides us the unimaginable alternative to craft enchanting experiences for customers, by interfacing with present, legacy, and inefficient programs. A easy {photograph} of a tablet bottle label can set off an AI-powered auto-call for a prescription refill to the pharmacy or your physician. A mix of tablet bottle photographs can inform a shopper concerning the crucial preventive exams. AI can full kinds, demystify complicated insurance policy, schedule appointments, and way more. These seemingly trivial improvements can dismantle the limitations to higher well being for everybody, particularly for the growing old Individuals who discover information entry and typing a problem.

Think about an chubby 53-year-old man with hypertension and excessive ldl cholesterol, who merely takes footage of his Amlodipine and Crestor tablet bottles. AI cannot solely auto-call his pharmacy to order his refills, and decide he wants a preventive HbA1C blood check, however in truth, schedule that check, remind him to watch his blood strain, finds the perfect place for his again bodily remedy primarily based on his insurance coverage, schedule his PT appointment, and even full the affected person consumption kinds for him. Now cease imagining. The 53-year-old man is me, and an AI app does the entire above for me proper now as we speak.  

What if everybody used this sort of app?  How a lot would adherence enhance?  How a lot would vitals enhance?  We have already got solutions to those questions from a pilot challenge we did with polychronic growing old Individuals. In simply 90 days, these easy improvements alone boosted remedy adherence as much as 94% and improved blood strain by 21%.  Maybe most surprisingly, we elevated affected person satisfaction with current insurance policy and medical doctors by a staggering 54% in the identical time interval. .

AI in healthcare is just not a distant dream for tomorrow, neither is it a harbinger of human extinction. As a substitute, it’s a beacon of hope that may illuminate our path as we speak. By delighting customers with higher experiences, we are able to affect well being outcomes, decrease prices, and in the end spark the systemic change that has been lengthy overdue. A brighter world of healthcare is inside our grasp, and the important thing to this transformative journey is AI.

About Nick Dua

 Nick Dua, the founder and CEO of Together by Renee, a generative AI-based app that makes healthcare magically simple for growing old Individuals and their overwhelmed caregivers. Nick can also be the founder and former CEO of Heal. His portfolio encompasses 5 venture-backed startups, most notably Heal – an award-winning platform disrupting conventional healthcare via on-demand physician home calls. Heal attracted over $200MM in funding capital, secured contracts with 25 insurance coverage firms, and partnered with 70+ firms, together with Google, Qualcomm, and Activision-Blizzard, earlier than being acquired by Humana.

Presently, Nick is the visionary behind Collectively by Renee, the trailblazing AI-assisted platform facilitating routine well being duties for growing old adults and their caregivers. Collectively has notably accomplished the U.S. HHS PandemicX and the AARP Age-tech Accelerators. This progressive enterprise, backed by $8MM in enterprise capital from distinguished traders like Quiet Capital, Tau Ventures, Mucker Capital, Fika Ventures, AARP, and Optimistic Ventures, exemplifies Nick’s dedication to enhancing healthcare accessibility and comfort.

Nick’s prior ventures embody the primary self-updating net deal with ebook, an early Instagram precursor funded by Qualcomm, and a web based weight reduction teaching service backed by Spark Capital and Anthem Blue Cross. His expansive entrepreneurial journey underscores his knack for innovation and disruption.

A revered thought chief and first-generation immigrant, Nick holds two U.S. patents and an MS in Electrical Engineering from UCLA. He has additionally shared his insights as an invited speaker at quite a few tech and healthcare conferences. At the moment, he balances his spectacular skilled life with a vibrant household life within the Pacific Palisades, alongside his spouse, Dr. Renee Dua, and their three youngsters. His story is a testomony to his relentless spirit, ingenuity, and dedication to harnessing know-how to enhance lives.