The healthcare industry is contending with many complex challenges that necessitate a groundbreaking approach. In steps generative artificial intelligence (AI). When combined with human efforts to enhance trust and care in healthcare practices, this innovative technology offers novel solutions to overcome challenges and improve health outcomes. This guide explores the challenges in healthcare that gen AI is poised to address. It discusses how to strike the right balance with generative AI in healthcare, maximizing the benefits while minimizing risks.
Addressing Challenges with Gen AI
The healthcare industry has faced significant strain, particularly over the last several years. Many of these challenges arise from increasing demand for services, rising costs, workforce shortages, and evolving patient needs. So, what are the challenges in healthcare that gen AI is uniquely able to address?
Workforce Shortages
Shortages of healthcare professionals and nonclinical staff are a growing concern for hospitals and practices worldwide. Many factors contribute to the shortages, including an aging workforce, limited training capacity, geographic maldistribution of healthcare professionals, and attrition.
Generative AI poses multiple solutions to these challenges, including the following:
- New technologies that excite students to enter the field of medicine.
- Enhanced education experiences that allow students to conduct simulations and research from anywhere at any time.
- Virtual medical assistants answer queries, provide personalized treatment recommendations, and facilitate care for chronic conditions over telehealth, reaching patients who otherwise might not have access to care.
- A multitude of solutions to ease the stress of the job, from AI medical scribes that expedite documentation to tools that can identify early signs of health issues before they arise.
Clinician Burnout
Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion that can result in cynicism and detachment, difficulties with sleep, struggles with concentration, and physical symptoms. It is well-known that clinician burnout is a significant issue in healthcare today, leading to serious consequences for both providers and patients.
Generative AI offers ways to address many of the root causes of burnout, such as long hours and demanding workloads. To potentially alleviate the burden of burnout, Gen AI can:
- Automate mundane tasks such as documentation, freeing up clinician time for patient interactions and paving the way for a healthier work-life balance.
- Help clinicians identify early signs of complications, deliver more effective and efficient preventative care, and improve patient outcomes.
- Handle routine patient inquiries, answer basic patient questions, and direct more complex requests to the right provider, reducing the administrative burden and allowing clinicians to focus on high-acuity cases.
- Assist with the management of schedules and workflows, cutting down on unnecessary tasks and ensuring providers have reasonable schedules.
Find the Right Balance of Gen AI Use
While generative AI offers many possible solutions, it is not without potential complications. From data security and privacy concerns to accuracy and bias concerns, generative AI solutions must be carefully developed, implemented, and maintained to ensure efficacy, ethics, and fairness. Rightfully so, patients, providers, and healthcare stakeholders are skeptical of the technology and curious about its potential to transform their lives for the better.
Finding the right balance of generative AI use in healthcare is an ongoing process that requires continual evaluation, adaptation, and refinement. Here are some strategies to consider:
- Rather than seeking to fit exciting technology into an existing system, take a value-based approach to implementation, focusing first on the challenges that need to be addressed, ensuring they align with the key value propositions of the medical center or care provider. Once the challenges are defined, then seek out the technology solutions necessary to address them.
- Use only high-quality, ethically sourced data to train gen AI models. Implement robust data governance mechanisms to ensure patient privacy and data security.
- Foster collaboration between clinicians, AI developers, and medical ethicists to ensure the solutions are fulfilling objectives in a responsible and just manner. Proactively address any ethical concerns that arise.
Partner with Encora to Adopt Healthcare Gen AI
Encora has a long history of delivering exceptional software engineering and product engineering services across various tech-enabled industries, including healthcare. Encora's team of software engineers is experienced in helping healthcare leaders unlock the industry’s fullest potential, from telehealth platforms to precision medicine, which is why fast-growing companies partner with Encora to outsource product development and drive growth. We are deeply expert in the various disciplines, tools, and technologies that power the emerging economy, and this is one of the primary reasons that clients choose Encora over the many strategic alternatives that they have.
To learn more about generative AI for healthcare, contact Encora today!
