Will Artificial Intelligence be driving force behind the future of healthcare startups?

Artificial Intelligence is revolutionising the way the technology industry is developing. From intelligent phones to intelligent cars and refrigerators, every aspect of human lives is being made easier by ‘intelligent’ devices.

One of the most significant areas of Artificial Intelligence research is in health care and well-being. Science is improving rapidly, and the reason for this can be attributed to the fact that with growing collections of data and improved algorithms, health researchers are able to provide increasingly improved insights about the way the human body works.

The investments for Artificial Intelligence in the healthcare industry are projected to grow from $6.9 billion in 2021 to $67.4 billion by 2027, at a compounded annual growth rate of 46.2 percent, proving the faith the industry has in the potential for adopting the usage of artificial intelligence

How to start using Artificial Intelligence in the wellness industry?

Artificial intelligence is based on the use of past data to make new recommendations, by constantly factoring in recent data to improve future results. An algorithm is only as good as the data it is given.

The main steps in using Artificial Intelligence in the wellness domain include:

Collecting input from reliable sources. The more data, the better the results will be. Data should be collected across a range of age groups, ethnicities and geographies to ensure the results are not biased.

Ensuring data is free of major outliers which may throw the accuracy of the results off. Data prep is an important stage, in which any data that is considered invalid is removed.

Finally after sufficient data is collected and cleaned, the outcome can be matched to suit a user's needs and current fitness levels.

How wellness startups are using Artificial Intelligence today:

Rapidly innovating startups are among the first adopters of enhanced artificial intelligence solutions.

There is a multitude of ways in which Artificial Intelligence drives growth at well-being startups:

Detection and diagnosis of well-recorded ailments

Body scans such as EEG () and X-Ray scans can be analysed by Artificial Intelligence algorithms to detect the potential for diseases, at an earlier stage than they might be detected otherwise.

Health trend analysis

Based on the diets, temperature, and past history of a population, companies can detect how susceptible the population of an area would be to potential illnesses

Curated diet plans as per the user’s preferences

At a more micro level, Artificial Intelligence can be used to learn consumer preferences to help design optimised meal and workout plans for users who need to achieve a specific fitness goal, for instance, users who require a diet low in sugar can have meal recommendations, and users with a history of heart issues may not be suggested workouts high in cardio

Workout tracking

By using cameras to track movements, workout apps can make intelligent recommendations about a user's workout routine, correcting their posture as required.

Chatbots and automation

By employing Artificial Intelligence to conduct chatbots and automate several manual tasks, startups can leverage the increased efficiency of Artificial Intelligence to reduce their average turn around time and help a higher number of users within a set time frame.

Key points to consider while adopting AI for wellness:

Since the field of wellness is critical, there are a number of points to be cautious about while integrating Artificial Intelligence into a technical solution for healthcare:

Accuracy of diagnostics and recommended treatments

For healthcare, algorithms need to provide accurate results. This means that a huge amount of data needs to be analysed, cleaned and used to train the Machine Learning models. Data should be sampled across a range of gender, age, fitness levels, socio-economic and geographic areas to ensure that the results generated are not biased or skewed towards a specific demographic.

Privacy and security of user data

Proper care needs to be taken to ensure data is anonymised and masked before being analysed. The data also needs to be encrypted before being stored to ensure that the data cannot be used for any malicious intent.

Adaptability of results as per the patients needs

The recent pandemic has taught us that trends can change overnight. Artificial Intelligence algorithms need to be able to factor in recent data and measure its significance appropriately.

Ease of interpretation for the consulting experts

It should be easy for those who are using the results to understand the various factors that were considered to generate the results. This ensures that they can understand the significance of any factor that may not be possible to enter into the algorithm.

Benefits of using AI in Healthcare

There are several reasons wellness companies are choosing to adapt to Artificial Intelligence in their startups:

Improved diagnostics:

The vast data pool ensures that results consider all factors. The chance of a misdiagnosis by error is reduced significantly.

Real-time adaptation: Artificial Intelligence algorithms adapt in real time to changing trends in human health conditions

Streamlined tasks: Artificial Intelligence can help keep operational costs of startups low by saving time and resources

Improved research: Research in wellness has made significant progress since the adoption of Artificial Intelligence

Each of these factors adds up to make an investment in Artificial Intelligence a great move for wellness start-ups.

Conclusion

Several people with vested interests in wellness may wonder if it is worth the time and investment to adapt to Artificial Intelligence in their startups. The answer is that it is definitely worth the investment! An early adoption can make a company stay ahead of its competitors.

(Sahil Bansal, Co-Founder & CEO, Fitelo-Chandigarh-based startup providing customised nutrition and lifestyle management plans with its AI-enabled app. Views are personal.)

Published on: Saturday, April 09, 2022, 10:28 PM IST