How artificial intelligence changes healthcare jobs
The DXC Digital Directions series of papers provides insights into achieving new levels of innovation, productivity and investment as companies scale their digital efforts.
Read an excerpt below from the position paper, Unlock healthcare data to deliver better patient care.
Human interaction is the core of good healthcare. Because of this, the risk of healthcare job loss due to automation driven by artificial intelligence (AI) is low compared to other industries. Instead of replacing people, AI can give nurses, executives and clinicians more time to connect with patients and provide more personalized and compassionate care.
Recognizing this, the American Medical Association has renamed AI as “augmented intelligence.” The technology helps doctors and other healthcare professionals take better care of patients. As such, AI can make healthcare more efficient and effective in identifying and streamlining the who, what, how and where of healthcare. This gives doctors and healthcare professionals more time for providing the very human delivery of personalized, compassionate care.
When AI is used to spot patients who may have problems with recovery, nurses can spend less time searching for the right care and more time providing patients with specialized care. They can also focus more on engaging with patients’ families, friends and communities.
When AI is used to learn from millions of patients and advise doctors on diagnoses and treatments, doctors can spend less time searching for the most effective treatment and more time applying it. AI can transform personalized care by eliminating the need for doctors to rediscover lessons learned.
AI in healthcare can shift the job focus from administration to human connection and personalized care.
When AI is used to forecast admissions and plan staffing, administrators can spend less time managing hospital operations and more time improving care for entire populations. Executives can dedicate more time to creating chronic disease management programs and community outreach initiatives such as volunteer medical projects for underserved people.
Of course, there is the danger that an AI-driven tool will perpetuate “bad habits” because, by default, AI has inherent bias. That bias is continuously refined by iterating the AI algorithm using more data. So, AI and tools such as robotic process automation need a strong governance process to guard against so-called “bad AI.”
Administrators, doctors, nurses and patients are eager for technologies that can improve the quality of care. For healthcare organizations that learn to unite fragmented data systems and apply AI, AI can shift healthcare jobs from administration to human connection, compassion and personalized care.
Continue reading the position paper, Unlock healthcare data to deliver better patient care.