Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, health care services around the world were due for a digital transformation; with resources relatively scarce and diagnostics increasingly complicated, the sector needed new technology to allow doctors to provide the best possible care. The pandemic has kicked that transformation into gear. Since it began, artificial intelligence-driven diagnostics, viral spread analysis, and telemedicine have become routine. Yet the transition will need to go much further if it is to alleviate the increasing strain on health care workers and infrastructure.
The pandemic, of course, has presented an enormous burden on the system. But the pressure won’t go away once the crisis ends given aging populations and proportionally fewer working-age adults to generate tax income. To future improve health care, it is time for us to push beyond simple digitization of records or use of phones for telemedicine. It is time to embrace artificial intelligence in health care.
