AI is progressively being integrated into every aspect of our lives. As a result, GlobalData expects every segment of the AI market to grow over the next decade. According to GlobalData forecasts, the AI market was worth $103bn in 2023. By 2030, it will have grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39% to over $1tn.
GlobalData’s AI in Healthcare report details how AI shows particular promise in medical diagnostics, enhancing surgical precision, speeding up image analysis, and improving disease diagnosis. The automation of routine tasks by AI can allow healthcare providers to see more patients while personalised care, predictive analytics, and faster diagnoses can lead to better patient outcomes and a more positive patient experience. Beyond this, the concept of “AI doctors” is also being explored.
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Artificial doctors and hospitals
Indeed, Tsinghua University in China is currently developing a so-called “Agent Hospital,” which is a complete digital simulation of the medical treatment process, from disease outset to follow-ups post-treatment. It is using LLMs to support doctors, nurses, and patients so they can perform tasks and communicate autonomously in a virtual environment. The concept also involves treating virtual patients with AI doctors. Tsinghua University uses large medical information databases (e.g., DNA sequencing, personal health, hospital, and patient records) and ML technologies to train its AI systems, making them capable of reasoning and medical diagnosis. As of 2024, the “hospital” has 14 AI doctors and four AI nurses.
Initially, the Agent Hospital aims to enhance its production process and use the AI hospital to train medical students to develop treatment plans. By simulating AI patients, students can practice developing treatment plans without harming real patients. Currently, virtual doctors are scheduled to be implemented into patient care at hospitals across China. The team at Tsinghua University claims that 10,000 patients could be treated in a few days, whereas human doctors would require at least two years to treat that number.
The successful introduction of the Agent Hospital could address challenges in healthcare services by enhancing patient outcomes, healthcare operations, training, and access to high-quality, affordable healthcare. However, AI doctors can only aid and will never fully replace humans, as uncertainty in medical practice is common. For example, the same disease can have different characteristics depending on the individual patient, and so treatment diagnoses and treatment options will vary. Furthermore, the use of healthcare data for AI development raises significant privacy concerns for both organisations and individuals. For instance, employing large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT to improve access to health information could impact patient privacy.
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By GlobalData