From the soaring costs of US healthcare to the recurrent NHS crisis, it can often seem that effective and affordable healthcare is impossible. This will only get worse as chronic conditions grow in prevalence and we discover new ways to treat previously fatal diseases. These new treatments tend to be costly, while new approaches can be hard to introduce into healthcare systems that are either resistant to change or fatigued by too much of it. Meanwhile, growing demand for social care is compounding funding pressure and making the allocation of resources even more complicated. Artificial intelligence (AI) is often glibly posed as the answer for services that are already forced to do more with less.

Artificial intelligence is developing at a fast pace. Numerous industries are bound to be transformed and improved by it in the years to come. We can already see examples in almost every industry out there, where AI has changed things from the ground up. Namely, one of the industries that will be impacted the most is healthcare. Healthcare is becoming better and more accessible to everyone in the world, but it could do with some help from the side.

Google's deep-learning research, involving a large dataset of retinal images used in diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy (DR), a diabetes-linked pathology that causes irreversible blindness, shows the transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare. In 2016, the tech giant announced its deep-learning algorithm that had been trained using a dataset of 128,000 images--each of which had been reviewed by 3-7 expert ophthalmologists from a panel of 54--to accurately interpret underlying symptoms (microaneurysms, haemorrhages, hard exudates, etc) from fundus images (a specific type of imaging of the eye) and detect referable DR. Given the pathology affects 18% of the 70 million diabetics in India--and with 415 million diabetics worldwide, is now the fastest growing cause of blindness--Google's algorithm vastly improves the prospects of DR being screened by doctors faster, and in greater numbers than is possible in an unassisted scenario. For countries strained for resources and healthcare infrastructure, this is truly a manna since diagnosis in the early stages can prevent/delay onset of blindness. The algorithm's performance was tested with 12,000 images, with the majority opinion of panels of expert ophthalmologists drawn from Google's pool of 54 on each of these images set as the reference standard.

The UK is "on the cusp of a huge health tech revolution that could transform patient experience", said health minister Matt Hancock when he announced £250 million to fund a new AI Lab for the National Health Service earlier this month. The lab has been set up to bring together academics and technology companies to work on some of the biggest challenges in health and care. But the AI sector has a reputation for overpromising on what it can deliver – as do politicians.

German based Siemens Healthineers purpose is to enable healthcare providers to increase value by empowering them on their journey towards expanding precision medicine, transforming care delivery, and improving patient experience, all enabled by digitalising healthcare. An estimated five million patients globally everyday benefit from their innovative technologies and services in the areas of diagnostic and therapeutic imaging, laboratory diagnostics and molecular medicine, as well as digital health and enterprise services. They are a leading medical technology company with over 170 years of experience and 18,000 patents globally. With about 50,000 dedicated colleagues in over 70 countries, they will continue to innovate and shape the future of healthcare. Speaking to HEQ, Global Head of Digitalizing Healthcare Joerg Aumueller explains the integration of AI into healthcare and how Siemens Healthineers are leading the change.

Artificial Intelligence is impacting healthcare in the same way that OBD impacted automobiles a few decades ago. With the combination of data and machine learning, AI is moving healthcare to a much more automated, efficient, interactive, and intelligent state. But how will AI impact the future of Healthcare? The most significant way Artificial Intelligence has transformed healthcare is through data analysis and management. AI can store, connect, and skim through patient data to identify medical problems and diagnose them through highly accurate clinical decisions.