While perusing the Internet the other day I came upon an article at Fortune.com regarding the up and coming sectors of healthcare where Artificial Intelligence (AI) will make the most impact in the near future.
The article highlighted two areas: robot-assisted surgery and “Nursing Assistant Applications”.
Robotic surgeries are nothing new. The da Vinci Surgical System and others like it have been around for years and their use is growing: more and more hospitals are purchasing the $1.4 million dollar machines, and more and more surgeons are being trained in how to use them. These are not just general surgeons anymore, but cardiothoracic surgeons, colorectal surgeons, GI surgeons, gynecologic surgeons, neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons and others.
However, my impression of these systems was that they were essentially high prices, highly technical tools for the surgeon to use to do his or her job. A glamorous scalpel, essentially. This new article apparently is theorizing much more than that, including integrating information from pre-operative medical records and “machine learning” to improve surgical outcomes and reduce the length of a patient’s hospitalization.
As a medical negligence attorney focused on patient safety and accountability, I can imagine the complexity of a case involving an AI “robot”, a surgeon, and a surgical error. Who is in charge when the error occurred? Can the “robot” be in charge? Although my sense is that jurors will have an easier time finding fault with a faceless robot, these are complex questions that will need to be addressed to protect all of us from unnecessary medical errors.
The Nursing Assistant Applications appear to include a number of devices that will allow health care providers to monitor vital signs and patient symptoms remotely. These include a number of things already on the market, including apps for your Apple Watch that let a pregnant mother monitor heart rate and contractions and send that information to a health care provider (you can read a recent blog post about that [here](https://cmglaw.com/Blog/2015/10/Monitor-vital-signs-of-your-patient).
I expect this to continue, as large corporations providing health care will continue to attempt to improve efficiency by reducing the need for patients to actually see their doctor (or ARNP, or PA). After all, why see your doctor when you can hook yourself up at home and wirelessly send that information to him or her (or perhaps a robot with AI)?
The article goes on to list a few other possible areas where AI will be used in health care, including fraud detection and dosage error reduction.
I am certainly not a Luddite: I understand that improvements in technology have had and will continue to have a positive impact on the health of all of us. My worry lies in the unfortunate reality that our healthcare system is in many ways profit driven, and without proper checks and balances, profits will end up being more important than patients.
