From the rapid advancements in adaptive learning technologies to the unprecedented accuracy in diagnosing complex conditions, artificial intelligence is poised to become a critical partner in modern medicine. That word, “partner,” not “replacement,” is key. This collaboration is changing not only how medical professionals are caring for their patients, but how they’re learning about caring for them.

“The irony is the people who worry the most, at least in health care, are the providers and physicians who think they’re going to get replaced. And I think that’s a very unlikely scenario,” says Ronald Rodriguez, M.D., Ph.D., director of the M.D./M.S. in AI program and professor of medical education at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. “They are just simply too important a component of its implementation. They’re the infrastructure of health care in the United States.”

To be clear, there are some health care roles that will see disruption.

‘Medical decision-making is complex’

Rajiv Haravu, senior VP of production management for IMO Health, was first exposed to AI in 1990. His work now focuses on Natural Language Processing (NLP) that helps computers understand and interpret human language. Haravu says administrative functions like data entry, medical coding, and appointment scheduling are some of those jobs. Radiology and document summarization are also seeing widespread use of AI. He considers the tool a bonus in health care.

“Medical decision-making is complex. One of the important factors is the amount and complexity of data that needs to be reviewed to arrive at treatment and management options. The volume of information that each of us as patients generate is beyond any human’s capability to fully absorb, retain, and process,” he says.

“AI-based systems excel at processing large amounts of data, summarizing them, and drawing insights from them. I see AI as a force multiplier to the medical workforce, not a wholesale replacement of that workforce.”

AI is already proving to be a powerful health care tool

Rodriguez identified AI as an opportunity area for medicine and became a key architect in the nation’s first dual degree in medicine and AI. He has already seen how, working together with AI, doctors and scientists are able to more quickly diagnose patient issues, improve patient interactions, make more objective decisions, and acquire knowledge faster.

He highlights a notable example from the pandemic, where AI systems were trained to analyze chest CT scans to look for radiographic features imperceptible to the human eye in order to identify the presence and severity of COVID-19. With another project, AI was used to analyze kidney stone patients’ clinical parameters including their bloodwork, urine test, and history to identify the risk factors for different types of kidney stones with a degree close to 75%.

He says findings like these are not possible, however, without the human inputs providing information, asking precise questions and correcting errors, and a human review of the data.

“It’s conceivable, for instance, that you can now set up teams of providers with master clinicians, who maybe has somebody that goes in and puts a stethoscope on the heart and records the sound from that, runs it through AI, and tells you all the different abnormalities that are there,” Rodriguez says.

“And the cardiologist…has a differential diagnosis by sound – he already has a physical exam by somebody that may be AI-augmented, and his focus can now be specifically on the problems that normally would have taken a week or two to start testing for, but he’s already there.”

When a patient speaks a different language, that barrier can prevent proper care. Working alongside AI can remove that challenge with translation services that can speak every major dialect and language in the world, summarize the patient visit, next steps, and treatment. Providers can instruct AI as to what level of education the notes should be written. If patients can’t read, a voice recording can be created in mere seconds. Rodriguez calls it revolutionary.

Data-driven insights could guide decisions about care

In addition to expediting some information gathering and analysis tasks, AI’s role in decision-making can support health care professionals by providing objective, data-driven insights. This capability can assist particularly in areas where human judgment may be influenced by biases or incomplete information, he says.

“We live in a divided society, where people make decisions often based on philosophies and not on the objective data. They come in pre-programmed with certain things that they just believe should be the right way, with the data supports that are not [the right way]. AI is much better about actually saying, ‘This is what the data supports. Here’s the right decision to make,’” Rodriguez says.

Demand increases for tech upskilling for AI tools

One of the most significant areas where AI is already making strides is in medical education. What he calls the “explosion of medical knowledge” presents a daunting challenge for health care providers. Traditional methods of education often fail to keep pace at a time when most people are wide consumers of the 30-second social media video.

But AI-driven adaptive learning systems can identify and target a provider’s weaknesses and create custom tutorials and lessons to fill those gaps rapidly. This kind of “study buddy” is needed now more than ever.

More than 83 million people in the U.S. do not have easy access to a primary care physician. The increasing patient load, shrinking workforce, high costs of a medical degree education, and the stress from all of those factors are strong reasons why knowing how to incorporate AI in health and medical care is vital for providers.

“There’s been a convergence of knowledge of tech innovation, computer technologies, and programming that has all come together at the same time,” Rodriguez says. “It’s this really major inflection point, that allows us to advance technologies in a way that we never had before.”

“There is a shortage of health care professionals. But the demand for health care services is not reducing. Especially in rural and underserved areas,” Haravu adds.

“All of us in every sphere of life need to understand the technologies that make up artificial intelligence. Health care is no exception. General awareness and understanding of this emerging technology has to become mandatory in the future. Which means skill sets will need upgradation for workers to stay relevant in the workforce.”