Forbes Insights: AI And Healthcare: A Giant Opportunity

These benefits will accrue incrementally, from automated operations, precision surgery, and preventive intervention (thanks to predictive diagnostics), but within a decade they will fundamentally reshape the healthcare landscape as we know it. "It's going to take years to get the full promise, but it does bring a particular tool into the dialogue that was never before available," says Kaveh Safavi, head of Accenture's global health practice. Safavi expects that AI applications may help solve the dilemma of what's known as the "iron triangle" in healthcare, in which three interlocking factors--access, affordability, and effectiveness--require inevitable and often negative trade-offs. Trying to improve one factor usually harms another, he explains. But AI has the potential to short-circuit the traditional methods to cut costs, improve treatment, and bolster accessibility in tandem.