AI for healthcare is yet to mature, say experts

Top Stories

Bernardo Mariano, CIO at WHO, spoke on how the organisation aims at delivering positive health outcomes.- Photo by Juidin Bernarrd
Bernardo Mariano, CIO at WHO, spoke on how the organisation aims at delivering positive health outcomes.- Photo by Juidin Bernarrd

Dubai - WHO works with member countries so that they can encourage ethics and good governance, accessibility and affordability.

By Saman Haziq

  • Follow us on
  • google-news
  • whatsapp
  • telegram

Published: Tue 30 Apr 2019, 8:00 PM

Last updated: Tue 30 Apr 2019, 10:25 PM

Although artificial intelligence (AI) is not being widely used in the healthcare industry, it does have a future in the sector, industry experts opined during their talks at the AI and Health session at the AI Everything summit on Tuesday (April 30).
Speaking on whether AI will disrupt healthcare for the patient and doctors, Dr Sam Shah, director for digital development at the National health Society, UK, said "we need to balance it (AI) out against data, security, privacy and transparency and understand its different components".
"We have to find out which components of AI are relevant and which have to be researched more. For example, it can work well in areas such as image recognition or reading text, and also some components of AI can help in drug discovery. But the reality is that in healthcare, when humans procure good information, they can make excellent decisions with other human beings, and therefore I believe that AI can help augment decision making but it still has a long way to go."
Representing the World Health Organisation (WHO), Bernardo Mariano, CIO at WHO, spoke on how the organisation aims at delivering positive health outcomes, and ensures that AI transformation of healthcare is done with the right regulation.
"By 2030, we want the whole world to get better health and well being, and for that the key element is looking at universal health coverage, because almost half the world does not have medical cover. We want digital transformation in health sector to help positive outcome for all, which is also our sustainable development goal 3 (Health4All). Bear in mind that 49 per cent of the world does not have broadband services, then how do we make sure they are not left behind?"
For this, Mariano said WHO works with member countries so that they can encourage ethics and good governance, accessibility and affordability.
Concluding his talk, Mariano said: "We must ensure that the AI revolution is safe, sustainable and leaves no one behind and for this, the WHO aligns with the support a particular country needs, and works with policy makers to see to it that AI follows the regulations that are required in terms of protecting data and rights of individuals. Another important part the WHO banks on is people's feedback as we want the public's feedback to tell us if they are benefiting or not from AI-powered technologies. Because any malfunction can have a higher impact, therefore we need to monitor AI transformation."
saman@khaleejtimes.com


More news from