AI use cases in healthcare for Covid-19 and beyond - Information Age

During the Covid-19 crisis, hospitals and healthcare companies have been rushed off their feet in trying to take care of affected patients. Alongside this has been the goal to find effective and safe treatments for the virus, which is still ongoing. However, digital technologies have continued to disrupt the healthcare sector, increasing efficiency and visibility, and AI is a key example. "Healthcare is a discipline perfectly suited to reap the rewards that even the most basic task-based AI can provide," said James Norman, chief information officer of healthcare at Dell Technologies. "Globally, the demand for healthcare is increasing at an unprecedented rate – far outstripping the supply of healthcare professionals trained globally. "While obviously true in the developing world, across Europe an ageing population and a rise in chronic disease is causing unprecedented strain on resources." Norman went on to explain how AI has aided pathologists in executing round-the-clock medical results, proving to be useful for treating cancer cases. "In Europe, the number of cancer cases continues to rise while the number of trained pathologists – those tasked with spotting cancerous cells – declines," he continued. "Traditional pathology requires that a GP take a tissue sample from a patient, send it to a lab for analysis in a lab, where it's manually placed on a glass slide to be examined, by a human pathologist, under a microscope.