Although Artificial Intelligence has been touted as a solution to many problems, its development requires a great deal of effort. Our conversation started with Ashley Ross explaining that AI and healthcare will evolve together and that, despite the fact that many people view it as a panacea that can solve all of the industry's problems, it is still in its infancy.
AI will change as it works in healthcare to learn more effectively. According to medical care's viewpoint it is simply becoming acclimated to information the executives and how it manages information when you contemplate rules, regulations, guidelines or even becoming familiar with it. As a company, we've noticed that some people absolutely love the idea and are ready to implement it, while others are rightly wary and are seeing how their world changes as a result.
As AI's influence continues to grow, there will unavoidably be an impact on the factors that medical device manufacturers, including those who had developed innovations prior to AI's emergence, must take into account when developing physical devices. These factors include data security and the technology necessary to guarantee that the devices are kept up to date.
When describing how hardware and software can work together to achieve their full potential, Ashley Ross uses the implantable cardiac monitoring systems known as Reveal LINQ and LINQ II from Medtronic. These systems are worn under the skin and are implantable.
“Historically, we have been a hardware company; however, we are incorporating AI.
“Reveal LINQ has been around for about 20 years in one form or another, and the way we've iterated is, let's improve the hardware in the way the hardware is designed now to allow software, particularly AI, to make improvements. As a result, we will be able to release updates to the technology in the same way that you would update the software on your phone by moving it into cloud-based data management.
We can alter our device's performance by simply improving its artificial intelligence. Therefore, we are a hardware company that recognizes the advantages of AI in accelerating device development.
Ross adds that it depends on the manufacturer's strategy in terms of what the advancement of AI means for hardware devices in the future and what medical device developers want to do with AI.
"We're taking the approach where the hardware gives us the ability to update the AI or software effectively remotely." We never had two-way communication with the device, and updating the hardware required physically bringing a patient back into the clinic.
Due to AI's speed of learning and detection, "the rate at which AI is going to evolve will also be faster than what we've evolved hardware."
According to Ross, the role that artificial intelligence (AI) can play in the sustainability agenda is huge because businesses are increasingly looking for ways to project a more environmentally friendly image. This could help physical devices last longer because updates to them reduce the need to throw out parts and allow the company to take advantage of other opportunities in the industry.
It is at this point that you begin to consider manufacturing lines and everything that follows. if we get to the point on the diagnostic side where you can have a baseline piece of kit that you are developing. As the AI develops, we are then able to begin to understand the morphology of ECG traces and what we can see within that underlying trace, in addition to diagnostics and disease state management, using the baseline hardware.
Good AI is essential to its commercial success as well as to the NHS's ability to address significant backlogs. How is this defined? In a nutshell, Ashley Ross states that it depends on the material being taught.
There are a million distinct ECG traces in our most recent AI and Reveal LINQ or LINQ II versions. It has learned from going through a million different kinds of arrhythmias that could occur, and that has been confirmed. But then it stops as well. Therefore, the learning ceases and is held at a predetermined point.
"It functions admirably. We can trust it because it has seen so many different variations and is determined to perform well. That is high quality to us. It has a lot of data, has been rigorously validated, and has been stopped from learning to prevent it from developing bad habits.
AI proponents have frequently asserted that it may offer a solution to healthcare disparities; how, then, does AI contribute to redressing the imbalance?
The following is Ashely Ross's conclusion: It enables us to quickly and effectively update the kit. Now, AI or AI iterations are automatically integrated into our technology. That doesn't necessarily come with a price.
That makes it possible for a hospital that uses our kit right now to benefit from AI and future versions of AI. It doesn't cost anything, and in the long run, it should help us save money, which will benefit our healthcare system.
Volume is the other aspect. Perhaps of the greatest test right presently is holding up records and the capacity of staff to decipher information and afterward work with that information.
"AI has the potential to significantly accelerate data diagnosis and interpretation; meaning that a healthcare system could accommodate a larger number of patients at the same cost as it currently charges. That brings things more level.