First Report on Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Released

TechEmergence is the only market research and media firm that is 100% focused on artificial intelligence (AI). The firm has recently completed a four-month long research study of over 50 executives running AI-in-healthcare companies. These ranged from pre-revenue companies to companies making multiple millions per year in revenues. The company has now released the findings of their research, Machine Learning in Healthcare: Expert Consensus from 50+ Executives.

One of the key findings of the report is the projection that there will be broad scale AI adoption in the healthcare industry by 2025. TechEmergence CEO Daniel Faggella says: “Over 50% of respondents believe that AI will be ubiquitous in healthcare by 2025. On an open-ended question, over 25% of respondents stated that they believe that AI will be nearly ubiquitous in the healthcare setting by 2025. We were surprised by this optimism, and the consensus on such a specific date range.”

The research also highlighted a dire need for AI healthcare case studies. Companies were asked to list the most important hindrance or difficulty about selling AI into the healthcare field. The answer with the most responses was: 'Needs to be convinced further of ROI from AI / ML investments.’ Nearly 50% of US companies listed that response as a top hinderance in AI adoption in healthcare.

The AI executives polled in this research voted “Improving Health Outcomes” as being the factor of highest importance in getting a customer to buy an AI product, with a rating of 4.2 out of 5 (the highest of any of the healthcare benefits). “Saving Money” was rated a close second with a 4.1 score.

Further, AI's near-term impact will be on improving care for chronic conditions. Faggella mentions that “Chronic Condition” was listed in nearly 1/2 of responses when execs were asked to predict patient care improvement across ailments. Of the specific conditions mentioned under “Chronic Conditions”, “Diabetes” topped the list at nearly 30% of the mentions, followed by “Hypertension”.

This research is the first healthcare industry deep-dive into AI trends, offering unique insights not seen before. Research was conducted from January 2017 up to the beginning of May. The last few years have yielded a tremendous amount of attention at the intersection of healthcare, from DeepMind's partnership with the UK's National Health Service, to IBM's continued pushes. From the perspective of healthcare executives, however, many important questions are still unanswered and rarely addressed in detail.

Those interested in TechEmergence can learn more on their official website.