Artificial intelligence in medicine: Getting smarter one patient at a time

By using complex algorithms to detect patterns in large datasets--like lab test results, current medications, and symptoms, to name a few--AI might actually make medicine more personable--not less. "By the time patients come in, we would already know what they've been experiencing," says Yale Medicine cardiologist and data researcher Harlan Krumholz, MD. "Especially for patients with chronic conditions, we could detect their need for medical attention before they do." The definition of AI varies among industries and even from one dictionary to another. But broadly speaking, in the realm of medicine, AI refers to the use of computer systems to create algorithms based on patterns in raw data to find connections (such as between a genetic mutation and a medical condition--or clusters of symptoms to a particular disease) that would be very hard, if not impossible, for a person to identify. To illustrate what an AI-assisted future in medicine will look like, Dr. Krumholz gives a hypothetical example of a patient at risk of heart failure, a condition where a weakened heart muscle struggles to pump enough oxygenated blood throughout the body.