If you’ve received medical care at any point this year, there’s a good chance you’ve had a close encounter with artificial intelligence.
Widely considered the watershed year of AI, 2023 ushered in a whole host of new and improved technology tools, many of which have impacted the world. health and wellbeing space.
“2023 was a pivotal year for AI in healthcare, witnessing revolutionary advancements that have reshaped medical practices and paved the way for a future where healthcare is more personalized, efficient and accessible,” said Dr. Harvey Castro, of Dallas, Texas. board-certified emergency medicine physician and national speaker on AI in healthcare, told Fox News Digital.
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Castro and other AI experts commented on some of the year’s most important advances for doctors and patients.
Below are six of the main innovations cited.
The year 2023 ushered in a whole host of new and improved AI tools, many of which have impacted the field of health and wellness. (iStock)
1. ChatGPT and other generative AI
Despite the lack of a formal regulatory framework governing its use, generative AI is being widely tested by healthcare professionals, noted Dr. Tinglong Dai, a Johns Hopkins Carey professor of operations management and business analytics. Business School. Baltimore, Maryland.
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“ChatGPT remains the best known and most used generative AI tool among health care professionals in various activities aimed at reducing the documentation burden and allowing clinicians to focus on their core activities,” Dai told Fox News Digital.
“Johns Hopkins University has several ongoing research projects investigating the potential of using generative AI to reduce clinician burnout resulting from electronic medical records,” he noted.
Launched by OpenAI in November 2022, ChatGPT exploded onto the healthcare scene in 2023.
Launched by OpenAI in November 2022, ChatGPT exploded onto the healthcare scene in 2023. (Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The large-scale language pattern affects everything from how patients get medical advice to how doctors communicate and keep records.
“ChatGPT has revolutionized healthcare communication by providing tools for personalized treatment plans and remote patient engagement,” said Castro.
“For example, it has been used to create interactive educational materials for patients, improving understanding and compliance.”
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The AI chatbot has also been met with some skepticism, as its responses have sometimes been found to lack accuracy and completeness.
“Human control remains essential, ensuring that AI tools like ChatGPT are used as supplements rather than substitutes for professional medical judgment,” Castro added.
2. Disease detection using retinal images
In September this year, researchers from the University College London team announced a “groundbreaking” AI model for disease detection using retinal images; the results were published in the journal Nature.
In September 2023, researchers at University College London announced a “groundbreaking” AI model for disease detection using retinal images. (iStock)
“This model, developed through self-supervised learning on 1.6 million unlabeled retinal images, excels in diagnosing and predicting ocular diseases and systemic disorders such as heart failure and myocardial infarction,” Dai told Fox News Digital.
The model, called RETFound, marks a “significant advancement in medical AI, providing a more efficient approach to disease detection through a baseline model,” Dai added.
3. Improvements in medical productivity
In another AI breakthrough, a study between the US, UK and Bangladesh provided the first concrete evidence that autonomous AI can improve medical productivity, Dai noted.
The study, published in Nature Group’s npj Digital Medicine, showed a 40% increase in clinical productivity in diagnosing retinal diseases in diabetic patients.
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This was achieved by using an FDA-approved AI device to screen patients upon entry to the hospital.
“The AI device allows clinicians to focus on the most complex patients,” Dai said. “Taking complexity into account increases productivity by 265%.”
4. Medical imaging and education
DALL-E 3 is an AI-based image generation model that was initially released by OpenAI in January 2021.
As OpenAI describes it, “DALL-E 3 takes a text prompt as input and generates a new image as output.”
Advances in AI-based medical imaging, such as improved MRI technology, have led to faster scan times, improved image resolution and reduced radiation exposure, said an expert. (iStock)
In the healthcare field, Castro highlighted that DALL-E3 can create accurate medical illustrations from text descriptions.
“It has been instrumental in medical education, providing visual aids for complex medical conditions and procedures,” he told Fox News Digital.
There have also been advances in AI-based medical imaging, such as improved MRI technology, which has resulted in faster analysis times, improved image resolution, and reduced radiation exposure, thereby significantly improving diagnostic accuracy, Castro added.
5. Accelerated cancer research
Andre Esteva, CEO and co-founder of ArteraAI, a precision medicine company in California, described research against cancer as “fertile ground for AI”.
“We use it to discover hidden patterns in data, personalize treatment decision-making and help predict treatment benefits,” he told Fox News Digital.
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AI helps accelerate clinical trials and opens the door to new possibilities in healthcare, Esteva noted.
“Imagine AI designing cancer treatments tailored to your unique genome: the possibilities are limitless.”
6. AI medical devices
AI-based medical devices remain successful, Johns Hopkins’ Dai noted.
As of July 2023, 692 AI devices were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical use, an increase of 33% from 2022.
“Clinicians who adopt these technologies will most likely replace those who do not adopt them.”
“Approved devices now span 19 specialties, although radiology remains the largest specialty, accounting for about three-quarters of approved devices,” Dai told Fox News Digital.
A report on AI from the New England Journal of Medicine also highlighted the real-world use of these devices, demonstrating their rapid growth.
“A successful year”
Matt Mohebbi, head of AI and research at Brightside Health in New York, described 2023 as a “blockbuster year” for basic research into large language models for health care.
Advances in AI in 2023 represent a “significant step forward in integrating AI into healthcare,” an expert told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“Some of the biggest companies are competing with each other to produce industry-leading performance in medical benchmarks,” he told Fox News Digital.
“Even though patients won’t be able to see the benefits of these discoveries in the doctor’s office today, it is quite indicative of what awaits them,” Mohebbi continued. “Clinicians who adopt these technologies will most likely replace those who do not adopt them.”
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The 2023 AI Advances represent a “significant step forward in integrating AI into healthcare,” Castro told Fox News Digital.
“These innovations promise a future in which healthcare is more personalized, efficient and accessible, ultimately leading to better patient outcomes and a transformed healthcare landscape.
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