Artificial Intelligence has been around for a long time, decades. So why all the hype now? The confluence of cheap computing, abundant data, and consistent connectivity has provided the right ingredients for AI to become a practical reality. Data has always been a valuable asset in healthcare, demonstrating any therapy to be safe and effective has required data to prove it. However, a connected medical device presents the opportunity to access data in near real-time, potentially allowing the device to get smarter without a clinical study. An alternative way to look at it is that a device may be most valuable as a data generator, supercharging the next iteration of therapy development.
The possibilities are exciting to say the least. Personalized medicine can leap forward with a device that is learning from the patient using it, providing a therapy that is better aligned with the individual patient’s needs. Alternatively, a population of diagnostic devices can share information to incrementally reduce the number of false positives over time. Effectively providing smarter devices, faster.