BALTIMORE — Artificial intelligence will soon change the way patient care is given by doctors.
"Doctors need to really be aware of this and think about changing how they view medicine so they can adapt to the coming technology,” said Dr. Daniel Morgan, who is a professor of Epidemiology & Public Health at University of Maryland School of Medicine.
He said AI will play a role in many areas of medicine, even helping by giving a list of possible diagnosis, "What AI and computer algorithm can help give is a much more consistent answer, they can say okay this patient has a 10 percent risk of dying in the next 30 days and maybe a 50 percent chance of being out of a nursing home in one year."
But he said using AI is something doctors need more training on.
"I think doctors need to think more along those lines of probability, like well how much does this really change probability and does that new information change what I’m going to do for this patient, and I think that's the starting point," said Morgan.
AI can make life easier for doctors, saving them time by performing administrative tasks.
Morgan said, "So the doctor will be talking to the patient just like we are, but a note will be written while they're there but it won't just be a transcription of the conversation, it will be sort of a summary.”
He said the machine won't take the doctor’s job, but help in the decision process, creating a partnership between the two.
"If you know sort of the parts that go into it then you can either use it very skillfully to say well I knew all of that already this is no new information I can ignore it. Or you can say oh I wasn't thinking about that let me consider antibiotics for this patient,” said Morgan.
He said it's the future of medicine, and it's just the beginning.
"If you ask doctors how the algorithms or AI change your practice most will say it doesn't, it doesn't have an impact right now but I think we're really on the cusp of that happening,” said Morgan.
