The importance of machine learning (ML) is considerably increasing in the recent world. The application of machine learning has started to use in almost all industries including, IT, financial service, health, e-commerce, transportation, etc. Machine learning technology has been leveraged by all these industries for several purposes including risk mitigation, cost reduction, and quality enhancement. These all can make a bigger impact on an organization’s total income. The rapid evolutions in machine learning technology have expanded its capabilities. Organizations have started depending on ML technologies to efficiently and accurately analyze the vast amount of data that they have and to build models, strategize and plan.
What is Machine Learning?
Machine learning aids in building models by learning from historical data patterns and enables organizations to make decisions without human intervention. Machine learning, which is a sub-field of artificial intelligence (AI) is a data analytics technology that automates analytical models using data consisting of digital data including numerical, texts, and images. By combining and extracting information gathered from various observations, ML can enhance and develop itself by gaining new information other than existing information.
“Machine learning is a subset of Artificial Intelligence that deals with self-programming applications, which use existing data to profoundly improve their accuracy without any human intervention.”
ML and its applicability in our daily life are expanding and one major field among them is the healthcare sector. The amount of data generated in this sector is huge and machine learning has an important role in the data extraction and analysis process.
ML Applications in Healthcare Sector
A wide array of tasks in the healthcare sector can be done using machine learning technologies. The classification, recommendation, clustering, prediction, anomaly detection, automation, and ranking.
• Classification – The type of disease and the medicines used for it can be identified using efficient machine learning models.
• Recommendations – The information regarding necessary medicines can be delivered using machine learning algorithms.
• Clustering – Similar kinds of diseases or medical cases can be grouped together to analyze patterns and for research purposes using machine learning algorithms.
• Prediction – Future events can be predicted using machine learning models by analyzing the current trends and data patterns.
• Anomaly Detection – The pattern that is different from the trends and patterns can be detected using machine learning models and suitable steps toward those events can be taken, if required, with the ml algorithms.
• Automation – Time-consuming tasks such as patient data entry, appointment scheduling, and inventory management that are repetitive in nature can be handled by machine learning.
• Ranking – Relevant information about patients and those related to the disease can be arranged in order with the help of machine learning algorithms.
The increased applicability of machine learning in the field of healthcare has helped in the advancement of the sector as well as opened up several opportunities. The focus on the patient can be increased with the help of machine learning. The time-consuming process such as data entry and patient data collection can be simplified using ML. It also helps in enhancing accuracy in disease diagnosis. A clear treatment plan can also be developed using machine learning.
Benefits of ML in the Healthcare Sector
Healthcare organizations are under more pressure than ever to improve results and save costs as they migrate from fee-for-service to value-based care. Payers and providers can use unstructured data analytics to handle problems more effectively. Overworked physicians can benefit from voice-to-text transcription, clinical note summaries, auto-documentation, and other machine learning tools that allow them to spend less time at the computer and more time with their patients.
Machine learning can also help healthcare businesses enhance risk adjustment. By extracting data from clinical records quickly and accurately, and can efficiently analyze more documents compared to manual analysis. Organizations and providers can use machine learning to discover hidden risk factors and treatment gaps, improving risk score accuracy. Government reimbursements for Medicare Advantage and Commercial Exchange plans, as well as provider payment rates, could be significantly influenced by a more comprehensive view of population risk. Machine learning provides healthcare leaders with the data they need to better manage risk and enhance patient care quality by finding gaps in treatment.
Machine learning applications are used on large scale in the medical field for several purposes. It includes the Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) which helps in identifying the disease with help of large data sets. Another one is the medical imaging system, which helped advancement in case grouping, anomaly detection, and disease research. With the help of Optical Character Recognition (OCR), data entry became easy by analyzing the handwriting of doctors. Through the analysis of patients’ daily activities, machine learning helps in getting rid of those unconscious and unhealthy habits which they affect them badly.
The predictive ability of machine learning has brought bigger advantages to the medical field. One such is the prediction of dangerous disease at the initial stage and providing treatment for that. Individuals with low-mobility issues are helped using ML technology by providing smart reminders by identifying common obstacles that help in avoiding potential injuries and can also provide help if needed. Apart from these, it is also used in several other fields such as robotic surgery, clinical research, drug discovery etc.
Conclusion
Machine learning has a lot of applications in healthcare right now, but it has a lot more potential. It could be used to improve medical care, forecast results, and even aid surgeries, in addition to patient diagnostics and therapy development. Machine learning has the ability to help healthcare firms speed up procedures, enhance operational efficiency, and ultimately deliver better patient care.
