Artificial Intelligence Looks to Enter the Healthcare Space as Regulatory Challenges Put Their Foot Down

Artificial Intelligence looks to sweep the world of technology and is certainly picking up the pace when it comes to occupying certain sectors due to its extreme modular nature. However, if there is one sector where AI hasn’t been able to sink their teeth into is the Healthcare sector. The truth is, there is not a single entity that is on speaking terms to the healthcare sector in the form of AI. The only reason that stands in between total adaption of AI to the healthcare sector is a regulatory challenge.

The global healthcare sector has more to gain than from AI than any other sector than it is. While AI has proven to be exceptional when it comes to predicting patient mortality, the adoption of AI gives rise to certain unique and unforeseeable risks that can cost lives.

While the reality is that many businesses can reduce mortality of patients with the implementation of AI, regulatory challenges do not allow the implementation due to these unforeseeable risks. The basic problem of AI is the solution which it provides. These solutions don’t work in a vacuum of data. They require extremely complex infrastructures that gather data from several individual providers.

When it comes to the healthcare sector, the various individuals that disperse data are the sectors of medical practices, hospitals, drug makers, insurers and any other number of intermediaries that provide support to the healthcare sector. The first challenge that occupies the implementation is designing an integrated medical integration that lapses the current Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the U.S and the General Data Protection Right (GDPR) Act in the EU.

Furthermore, at the moment, there is not a single platform that fits into an all-for-one platform that can handle the computed data that the AI requires to function. If any such platform can be constructed, it would take a massive coordinated effort for all countries to tabulate their data in the updated format. While AI might be coming to the Healthcare sector, there is still a good amount of time where it can be implemented, years, even decades.