By Gavin Firdaus
Abstract
The issue of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, etc is among the leading global issues of diseases. Non-communicable diseases manage to kill around 41 million people per year, equivalent to around 74% of global deaths. Detection, treatment, and moderation of non-communicable diseases are key components to addressing the issue of Non-communicable diseases. Although traditional methods are often limited in scope, this research paper explores the transformative potential of Artificial intelligence in benefiting people who are diagnosed with Non-communicable diseases through detection, treatment planning, and moderation. A more AI-personalized treatment would help automate the process of making a tailored treatment for specific patients who may have genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors. By analyzing past research papers and articles of this study, this paper aims to demonstrate how AI technology can not only optimize and enhance personalized treatment, and precise detection but furthermore make more cost-effective and accessible treatment. In conclusion, AI is shown as a promising and emerging tool to use in a medical perspective, overall helping tackle the global issue of Non-communicable diseases.
Literature review
1. “Artificial intelligence approaches to physiological parameter analysis in the monitoring and treatment of non-communicable diseases: A review”
- The data collected from multiple sources (clinical surroundings and wearable devices) are used as evidence to support diagnosing patients with NCDs. Advances in AI technology algorithms have great potential to apply the information collected from constant monitoring to create treatment models and help warn of future health complications, thus lessening medical expenses.
- This paper focuses on Obesity specifically, and current methods of diagnosing obesity have many limitations. This can be easily prevented by using a more personalized treatment for nutritional guidance that accounts for differences in diet due to genetic and environmental factors. The research paper conducted a program that used AI to collect data about the 93 participants in this program. The program demonstrates how AI can be used for personalized treatment by collecting and compiling data using it to help create a more specific treatment.
- This source tells us that AI has shown it can streamline healthcare processes. For example, it says that AI-assisted software reduces radiation therapy planning by 30%. Furthermore, it talks about databases and how AI could potentially use the databases to make more personalized treatments for patients. These artificial intelligence innovations are able to optimize treatment planning and make it more personalized toward people, overall showing the data-driven approaches and how it can help AI enhance the treatment and cut medical costs.
- This paper emphasizes the importance of ethics in the use of artificial intelligence in medicine, showing key issues that may limit the use of artificial intelligence. This paper mentions how AI could integrate “real-world data”, leading to concerns about trust, accountability, bias, and privacy. This looks through a more rationale perspective of the use of AI technology and its responsibilities and how we should remain cautious whenever using it.
Introduction
The growing epidemic of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease represents one of the greatest global health challenges of the 21st century at a time when traditional healthcare delivery models are unprepared to meet increasing demand and costs. The transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) extends from solutions for early detection to personalized treatment to continuous monitoring of patients. AI can speedily develop better models of care that understand patients, and more precisely predict complications to optimize treatment, create more personalized instruction, and cut healthcare costs.
Looking at the benefits of AI in planning treatments and monitoring the patient
AI has recently blown up in popularity, immediately streamlining itself into the medical world. AI appears an inevitable solution to the growing epidemic of non-communicable diseases by rapidly creating a more optimized treatment program. According to an article published by WHO (World Health Organization), Artificial Intelligence and Data Technology Provide Smarter Healthcare for NCDs, which highlights the effectiveness of AI in optimizing and speeding up treatments, “In Slovakia, a new technology helps reduce the average time spent by a radiation oncologist in planning radiation therapy for patients by at least 30%.” The same article also mentions “The Unified Electronic System for Cancer Data Collection” which collects data on cancer patients and registers every step in managing cancer. These examples demonstrate how
AI can streamline the healthcare process to address non-communicable diseases through faster and more optimized planning. This is because AI can help automate most of the process of planning to treat patients. Furthermore, by applying the right database, AI can create more personalized treatment steps for more specific situations.
Another example is in the research paper, Real-world data for precision public health of noncommunicable diseases: a scoping review, published under BMC Public Health, which analyzed six databases to use “real-world data” for developing a population health surveillance method. The paper found the potential for the emerging use of “real-world data” to help address NCDs with greater precision. This shows how integrating “real-world data” potentially with AI, could help develop a precise surveillance method and ultimately tackle the global issue of NCDs as a whole.
Thus, Non-communicable diseases as a global issue can be effectively addressed by AI using databases of these diseases through optimizing personalized treatments and the potential to develop a surveillance tool.
Looking at the usage of AI from a financial perspective
AI has also shown the potential to effectively mitigate healthcare costs, leading to more open and accessible treatments for the world, helping tackle the global issue of Non communicable diseases. According to the Science Direct article, Artificial intelligence approaches to physiological parameter analysis in the monitoring and treatment of non-communicable diseases: A review, states using AI to use information from constant monitoring to create models could help reduce medical expenses. This example demonstrates how the automation process of AI can easily cut medical costs because not only can it help to warn against future health complications, but also helps make the planning more effective, reducing the cost.
Another example is in the same article shown above, "Artificial Intelligence and Data Technology Provide Smarter Healthcare for NCDs," published by the World Health Organization highlights how AI and digital tools enhance healthcare for non-communicable diseases, it mentions how AI can help optimize and improve the process of planning and eventually make it more accessible. This indicates how AI may help make specific treatment planning more accessible for lower-class to middle-class citizens, by reducing the costs of planning. Hypothetically if this happens, this could be accessible by the whole world, for example, someone could create an application on mobile devices that makes it more accessible to the world.
Therefore, it is shown that AI can help effectively address non-communicable diseases through a more financial lens.
The ethical limitations and issues of the usage of Artificial intelligence
Although there is great potential for AI to solve this global issue, there is still much to clear up regarding the responsibility usage of AI before this development of AI can be applied
on a global scale. According to a paper published under Pubmed Central in the National Library of Medicine, Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, it highlights many ethical issues of the usage of AI such as trust, responsibility, accountability, bias, privacy, and many more. Trust for example could be a concern because an AI’s decision-making process could feel more uncertain rather than a normal human physician. On the other hand, if the AI makes systematic errors in its decision-making, it will be quite unclear who is responsible for the error, the developer, the healthcare provider, or the institution. Another issue is a breach of privacy can take place because AI often uses large databases, raising concerns about the potential misuse of sensitive information. Finally, the potential for bias and discrimination because AI systems can perpetuate or exacerbate existing healthcare disparities.
To put all of this into the picture, the use of AI still raises many concerns about the ethical and rational side of using AI.
Conclusion
In conclusion, AI holds the transformative potential to address the global issue of NCDs (non-communicable diseases) such as diabetes, obesity, etc. AI can address this issue by enabling more personalized treatment and precise monitoring, helping reduce costs, and making healthcare more accessible to all socioeconomic levels. However, many ethical concerns regarding trust, accountability, and privacy highlight the need to be more cautious and well-regulated in AI integration in healthcare. By addressing these challenges, we are able to use AI to engage and help tackle this global issue of non-communicable diseases.
References (in APA format)
- ScienceDirect. (2023). The data collected from multiple sources (clinical surroundings and wearable devices) are used as evidence to support diagnosing patients with NCDs. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1746809423008960
- MDPI. (n.d.). Non-communicable diseases, big data, and artificial intelligence. Retrieved from https://www.mdpi.com/2504-3900/91/1/202
- World Health Organization. (2021, December 14). Artificial intelligence and data technology provide smarter healthcare for NCDs. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/14-12-2021-artificial-intelligence-and-data-technology-pro vide-smarter-health-care-4-solutions-that-have-made-a-difference-for-noncommunicable-diseas e
- BMC Public Health. (2022). Real-world data for precision public health of noncommunicable diseases: A scoping review. Retrieved from https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-022-14452-7
- PubMed. (n.d.). Artificial intelligence (AI) in medical science is becoming increasingly valuable for managing non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Retrieved from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38236124/#:~:text=AI%20can%20help%20in%20various,and% 20follow%2Dup%20of%20patients
- National Library of Medicine. (2020). Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. Retrieved from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7615805/
- World Health Organization. (n.d.). Noncommunicable diseases. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/noncommunicable-diseases
