How healthcare has benefitted from Computer Science
Computer Science has arguably benefitted no industry better than healthcare, from speeding up triage and consulting times, to improving the accuracy and efficiency of diagnosing patients
The impact of AI on diagnosing patients
Artifical Intelligence:
- More accurately diagnoses different forms of skin cancer
- Allows surgeons, consultants and nurses to attend other pressing tasks
- Does not need to be paid a salary
- Never goes on strike nor has vacation nor time off work
- Can compute and output results much quicker than a human
Scheduling
A&E waiting times are notoriously lengthy, but AI is being used to shorten this hideous ordeal. The AI will take in variables relating to a patient, such as age and injury, and will alter the schedule accordingly using the priority queue data structure.
- For example, a child with a head injury will be put further forward in the queue than an adult with a broken thumb.
Previously, a human would be given the role of determining who should be placed where in the queue. However, this took up valuable time, and could lead to some wrong decisions, inadvertantly causing some patients harm, such as having their appendix burst before being able to receive treatment.