Introduction – The COVID Pandemic
The Coronavirus pandemic has become a matter of concern for the entire world. With the constant surge in numbers, it has become imperative for the Healthcare industry to introspect and adopt practices that give quick and accurate results.
With COVID-19 quarantine and social distancing becoming an integral part of our lives, it has become challenging for the doctors to physically examine their patients.
With growing cases of COVID and staff deficiency, hospitals are adopting AI in healthcare to control this pandemic.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence refers to a host of new technologies that enable machines to think and act like humans. AI is a novel branch of computer science that aims to build smart machines that can perform tasks that typically required the manual efforts of human beings.
Importance of Artificial Intelligence During COVID-19
Due to social distancing, Artificial Intelligence in healthcare has become a crucial tool to help identify the virus and recognize high-risk patients at an early stage. AI focuses on intelligence development in machines that can imitate human intelligence. Functions like problem-solving, speech recognition, learning, and planning can be carried out by such AI-powered software and machines.
Artificial intelligence technology was already booming before COVID-19, but with the pandemic posing many challenges, the Healthcare industry is implementing it rigorously.
How does Artificial Intelligence Work – A Brief Overview
With the help of AI, South Korea and China can recognize the infection routes through tracing systems and community monitoring. China with the use of cell phone software allocated a color QR code to represent the contagion risk.
By using diagnostic robotics digital risk evaluation and monitoring platforms, Israel has been able to monitor COVID symptoms on a daily basis. Crucial signs of COVID like heart rate, oxygen level, etc. can be examined by rings and bracelets that are synced with artificial intelligence healthcare applications. Vietnam saw lesser cases than developed nations because of its careful measures like mass testing equipment, locating disinfection chambers, and test kits to execute quick results.
Artificial Intelligence in India during COVID
Globally, India can be considered as one of the severely affected countries. Various healthcare institutes have started using AI in the healthcare sector to combat Coronavirus. Government of India and various state governments with the help of tech companies, has developed various apps like MyGov, Aarogya Setu, SAHYOG, Test Yourself Goa, and COVID-19 Quarantine Monitor- Tamil Nadu, etc. These apps keep people informed about all the COVID updates around them.
Various Indian startups have also come up with unique artificial intelligence products such as AI thermal camera to identify the suspects. Prescreening and examining the degree of lung damage in COVID-19 patients is done through AI-based radiology solutions.
The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is working closely with IIT Delhi and Intel India to identify economical COVID testing solutions, and genome sequencing to find a cure. A great amount of work has been done by startups, universities, other R&D, and healthcare organizations to introduce artificial intelligence medical applications to fight the pandemic.
The impact of artificial intelligence in combating COVID has been remarkable in the following ways:
1) Quick diagnosis
2) Tackling false information
3) Mass testing of patients
4) Answering queries related to the pandemic
5) Categorizing virus transmission chains
6) Early warning signs in various languages
7) Observing the elderly people in their homes and patients in ICU
Virtual assistants, Chatbots, Robots, and drones are placed in various healthcare institutes for quick response and treatment of the patients.
Benefits of Artificial Intelligence during COVID-19
By using Chatbots, AI has been able to handle patients’ anxiety. Since the virus is contagious, there are social stigmas and prejudices attached to it. Chatbots don’t judge the patients, this helps them disclose information comfortably.
Chatbots can provide 24×7 services at an economical cost without taking a break, unlike customer service representatives. The prompt response of virtual agents and conversational AI helps companies gather data that can later be used as actionable data by authorities.
Applications of artificial intelligence have helped reduce administrative burdens such as manual documentation by generating clinical notes automatically. This has helped doctors to spend more time with patients and reduce their workload. With large volumes of data available, AI software helps in presenting important information in an organized and systematic manner. These are just a few advantages of artificial intelligence.
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence technology today is being used to make healthcare more economical and easily available to everyone. With the increasing number of COVID-19 cases daily, scientists should focus on forming and using AI-powered tools for better diagnosis and cure. In these tough times of COVID-19, AI has been of significant help in examining huge amounts of data swiftly and efficiently.
AI is also used in performing critical robotic surgeries on COVID patients. Scientists are using artificial intelligence products to analyze numerous research documents to help find a cure for COVID along with various other diseases.
