The Doc Bot Will See You Now

Artificial Intelligence Is Medicine’s Future. But Certain Aspects Are Available Now. Here Are 12 Ways Ai Can Boost Your Health.

- Rachel Sturtz

When Professor Greg Corrado, an artificial intelligence researcher, took the stage at the TedMed Conference last year, he was frank. “Doctors who partner with artificial intelligence as a decision-making aid will see their healing powers expand more than they have in the past 100 years,” he told the audience of medical professionals. Corrado is a principal scientist at Google AI and an expert in machine learning. “To practise medicine today,” he continued, “is to weather an information hurricane... AI [and machine learning] is our best opportunity to tame the data beast and actually scale care to meet demand.”

Sound like sci-fi? Not to the hospitals, researchers, and med schools working with Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Google, Intel, and GE. Companies are creating algorithms to sort medical records, determine treatments, diagnose sepsis in as little as 12 hours, and even predict who will skip their next doctor’s appointment. Cloud-based, deep-learning technology is also being used to review MRIs to assess blood flow and scan for heart disease faster and more accurately than even the best radiologists can.

Although the field is still in its infancy, here are 12 innovative AI-based technologies you can tap today to improve your health.

Sensely Admit it – you’ve always wanted a private-duty nurse. Well, next time you have surgery, an interactive, virtual health assistant named Molly may follow up with you at home. The avatar can check symptoms, pull info from medical devices and wearables, and book follow-up appointments. (Sorry, no sponge baths.) No need to type – you speak to Molly, and all your info is automatically uploaded to your medical file for your doctor to review.

BEST FOR People who are frustrated by the hassles of conventional follow-up care or who need to closely monitor a chronic disease