What's New In Digital Health

Artificial intelligence in dermatology is being introduced throughout every aspect of the industry, from dermoscopy all the way to predictive analytics.Amid all of these astounding advances, which ones are set to have the greatest impact on dermatologists, their practice and (most importantly) their patients?

1. Artificial intelligence will experience a CAGR of 40% by 2020
Due to the exponential number of advancements, artificial intelligence (AI) is growing at an unprecedented rate. As a direct result, healthcare treatment costs are expected to be reduced by as much as 50%.¹ Due to these drastic changes, this statistic alone may signify a complete evolution of the way healthcare is provided and received.

2. 88% of industry experts confirm that predictive analytics will improve patient quality of care²
Predictive analytics are only just beginning to be recognized for their value within healthcare; in many cases, the early detection and treatment of conditions such as skin cancer are intrinsic to survival rates. Imagine if instead of being reactive healthcare became proactive, identifying trends and patterns within a patient’s profile that help medical professionals provide a unique treatment plan that could immediately care to a patient’s needs or even prevent losses in health.

3. Artificial intelligence algorithms correctly identify ~95% of melanomas³
Research demonstrates that artificial intelligence holds strong potential within dermatology, particularly in identifying dermoscopic images for skin cancer or other conditions. However, it is not alone that AI becomes a valuable tool; the study further concluded that diagnostic accuracy increased to 99.5% when paired with a medical expert, while suggesting to increase the confidence of primary care physicians for evidence-based clinical decisions.

4. Health-related data is projected to reach 40 trillion gigabytes by 2020⁴
All of this information translates to valuable insights that could never be uncovered by the human mind. By implementing AI-powered algorithms, computers could utilize this vast expanse of knowledge towards key health areas such as predictive analytics. With ~80% of this data remaining unstructured, it will also be important for future EMR solutions to be interoperable with other dermatology systems for the seamless and secure exchange of big data.

5. As little as 10% of machine learning opportunities in healthcare have been identified³
The relatively recent introduction of artificial intelligence for dermatology and beyond means that the overwhelming majority of applications remain undiscovered. Only a handful of ideas have been discovered, such as:

• Predictive analytics
• AI-supported teledermoscopy
• Clinical decision support
• Virtual body mapping

Final Thoughts
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to blaze an exciting trail of technologies, medical professionals will continue to be faced with exciting and innovative improvements to every aspect of their practice. Although already proven to be extremely cost-effective and supportive of providing quality care, it is clear that the most impactful changes are yet to come.