IdaHome--March/April

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TECHNICALLY SPEAKING

AI in Healthcare Artificial Intelligence has the potential to make strides in healthcare, but scientists must balance the optimal outcomes with the need for data privacy. BY HAILEY MINTON

X-ray diagnostics, contact tracing, computer vision, molecular machine learning are a few Artificial Intelligence tools highlighted by Lauren Pfeifer, a Data Scientist and Venture Capital Investor at Maschmeyer Group Ventures, based in San Francisco. The difference between Artificial Intelligence and Artificial General Intelligence is the difference between programing a bot to perform a specific job versus having a machine emulate a human in the way it performs a task. Lauren says progress is moving forward primarily with Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare. There is a lot of potential for good that can come from an algorithm processing vast amounts of data because it can help pinpoint problems faster and get care to those who need it more effectively. AI is making strides in diagnostics of X-ray images. A handful of medical institutions have gathered

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images of chest X-rays and generated algorithms to efficiently detect if someone has COVID-19. The X-ray shows nodules that look like glass shards which indicates that the patient needs further testing. These algorithms can sift through vast amounts of X-rays and flag the ones that resemble the X-rays of patients with COVID-19. The turnaround time is the bottleneck that has been optimized. Contact tracing is another AI tool that has been implemented in Israel to find the likelihood of COVID-19 outbreaks in certain parts of town. They use geolocation and tracking

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Computer Vision Early detection of skin cancer can prove the difference between a simple mole removal or several rounds of chemotherapy.

to see where people were contacting others. Of course, there is a give and take with data privacy. This leads us to ask the question, what data is being used to make our lives healthier and what is it worth? Computer vision is another branch of AI that can be very powerful in the realm of infectious diseases. Zap Malaria is based in Israel and they use geospatial data to find bodies


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