Benefits of Machine Learning in Healthcare

Benefits of Machine Learning in Healthcare

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are not new terms now! They have been there for years, and now they are gaining more and more popularity, and applications in various areas, like transport, entertainment, e–commerce, finance, healthcare, etc.

Machine Learning is revolutionizing many industries with its potential. Machine Learning is being used in many industries, because of several benefits, and understanding this, in this article, we are going to understand some of the benefits of Machine Learning in the healthcare industry, which is considered a prime industry.

Here is a brief list of the benefits that we are going to talk about, and then we will discuss them in detail, one by one.

Benefits Of Machine Learning in Healthcare

What is Machine Learning?

Before we move towards discussing Machine learning in healthcare, and its benefits, let’s discuss quickly what is Machine Learning, so that if you are not already familiar with the concept, you would get a gist of it.

If we try to understand machine learning quite informally, we can consider that it enables Machines to learn from the data, and then make predictions, or take decisions accordingly, without being explicitly programmed.

This is like if the Machine is being fed with a lot of data, and it is learning from the data, to do something, to predict something.

Definition of Machine Learning

If we try to quite formally define Machine Learning, it can be stated as follows –

“Machine Learning is a subfield of Artificial Intelligence, which involves the development of algorithms and models, which allow the machines to learn automatically from the data, and improve from the experience, without being explicitly programmed.

Even if you didn’t get the complete picture of what is Machine Learning, just understand that the Machines are learning from the given data, to make some predictions, or to take decisions. You just need to know the big picture for now, and you can explore more about Machine Learning.

Machine Learning in Healthcare Examples

Machine Learning is used in many industries, and it is revolutionizing industries. The healthcare industry has been progressing, and now, it has Machine Learning in action. Machine Learning in healthcare is generally used for better predictions, improved efficiencies, research purposes, etc.

You would get a brief idea about Machine Learning in healthcare when you would go through the benefits below. So now, let’s move to the benefits. Here is the list of benefits, and then we will explore them one by one. 

• Improved Diagnosis
• Cost Reduction
• Customized Treatment plans for patients
• Discovering new medicines, and developing new treatments
• Automating repetitive tasks
• Better management of health records
• Machine learning in surgery
• Preventive care

Improved Diagnosis

Machine Learning is being used in healthcare for providing a better diagnoses. There are Machine Learning enabled tools, which can be used to read and analyze the reports quicker and recognize the disease. This can enable doctors in making quicker and more accurate diagnoses for patients.

Cost Reduction

When Machine Learning is used in healthcare, it can lead to cost reduction in many terms. When the efficiency of diagnosis has improved due to Machine learning, then there would be targeted treatments, and no unnecessary stays, or no unnecessary tests and procedures would be needed.

Also, Machine Learning can be used to predict some diseases in the early stages, due to which, the risk to life and wallet, can be prevented at an early stage.

Customized Treatment plans for patients

With Machine Learning, we can come up with treatment plans for patients. This simply means that the Machine can understand the patient’s symptoms, perform a diagnosis, and come up with the best possible treatment plan for the patient.

Discovering new medicines, and developing new treatments

The models here can be used for drug discoveries and development, through learning and finding patterns from the data. So, it can help a lot in discovering new medicines and developing new and efficient treatments for diseases. So, this way, Machine Learning can also be used as a research tool in the healthcare industry.

Automating repetitive tasks

In the healthcare sector as well, there are many such routine tasks, which can be automated easily through Machine Learning, like some administrative tasks in the hospitals and clinics, or reading of patient records and reports, etc.

So, automation of many of these repetitive tasks can be done using Machine Learning. This can reduce or remove human intervention, and improve efficiency and speed of work.

Better management of health records

While Machine learning is not only useful for better diagnosis or generating effective treatment plans in healthcare, it can also be used in some administrative tasks, like handling and management of patient records, and reports.

In addition to that, Machine learning can be used for improving the efficiency of diagnosis, and treatment outcomes, by learning from the patient data, and finding some underlying patterns, which may not be easily detectable by humans.

For example, if the machine is continuously fed with X-rays, it would get better and better at recognizing fractures.

Machine learning in surgery

Not just in administrative tasks, or clinical tasks, like providing diagnoses, or treatment plans, but even beyond that, Machines can be used for surgeries. Robotic surgery so far is one of the most significant benchmarks of applications of machine learning in the healthcare industry.

Still, many improvements and advancements are going on in robotics surgery. It is a very beneficial, and revolutionary step in the healthcare industry.

Preventive care

With Machine Learning, diseases can be predicted at an early stage, which can help in preventing the disease from advancing, at an early stage, with some effective treatments, and procedures. This is very useful as preventive maintenance is anytime better than the treatment after getting that disease. It is often more useful when the disease is more deadly, but if caught at an early stage, it can be prevented, and the life can be saved.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed some of the benefits of Machine Learning in the Healthcare industry. It is very important to note that Machine Learning in healthcare is being used for a variety of purposes, like administrative tasks, diagnosis, and surgeries as well.

So, Machine learning is revolutionizing the healthcare industry, with many improvements, and many new possibilities.

If you want to explore more, you can consider going through our other articles on Machine Learning. We hope that you found this article useful.

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