Fiza Nadeem / Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan
According to recent global health estimates, nearly 4.5 billion people around the world still lack access to essential healthcare services, and the shortage of healthcare workers is projected to reach 11 million by 2030.
Experts suggest that artificial intelligence AI in Healthcare could bridge critical gaps in medical access, efficiency, and delivery.
If implemented responsibly, AI-driven innovations could accelerate progress toward the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of achieving universal health coverage by 2030.
The healthcare sector remains slower than most industries in adopting AI technologies, according to a white paper by the World Economic Forum titled The Future of AI-Enabled Health: Leading the Way.
The report highlights that while AI is reshaping sectors like finance, manufacturing, and logistics, healthcare still lags behind in integrating these innovations into everyday practice.
AI and Traditional Medicine
While it may seem worlds apart from emerging technology, new research suggests that artificial intelligence (AI) and traditional medicine can work hand in hand.
A recent brief from the World Health Organization (WHO), titled “Mapping the Application of Artificial Intelligence in Traditional Medicine,” highlights how AI can strengthen traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine (TCIM), and help preserve centuries-old cultural knowledge.
The global market for traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine (TCIM) is projected to reach nearly $600 billion by 2025.
Experts believe that artificial intelligence could further accelerate its growth. However, alongside this expansion comes a strong call for ethical responsibility.
“AI must not become a new frontier for exploitation,” warned Dr. Yukiko Nakatani, WHO’s Assistant Director-General for Health Systems. “We must ensure that Indigenous Peoples and local communities are not only protected but are active partners in shaping the future of AI in traditional medicine.”
How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Can be Used in the Healthcare Industry?
Here are seven emerging AI technologies that are already transforming the medical field:
Brain Scan Interpretation
A new AI-powered software is proving to be twice as accurate as medical experts when analyzing brain scans of stroke patients.
Developed by researchers from two UK universities, the system was first trained on 800 brain scans and later tested on 2,000 more.
What makes this technology especially valuable is its ability to pinpoint when a stroke occurred, which helps doctors decide on the right treatment at the right time.
In an interview with Health Tech Newspaper, Dr. Paul Bentley, a consultant neurologist, explained the importance of timing in stroke treatment. “For most strokes caused by a blood clot,” he noted, “patients are eligible for both medical and surgical treatment if they arrive within 4.5 hours of the stroke occurring. Up to six hours, surgical options may still be possible, but beyond that, the situation becomes far more complex as many cases turn irreversible.”
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Detection of Bone Fractures
It may come as a surprise, but urgent care doctors fail to detect bone fractures in up to 10%. The challenge is compounded by a shortage of X-ray technicians, many of whom are already stretched thin by heavy workloads.
To help ease this burden, experts suggest that AI-powered imaging tools could take on the initial screening process.
The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has endorsed the technology as safe, reliable, and capable of minimizing follow-up appointments.
However, experts have voiced concerns about the rapid adoption of AI in healthcare.
Dr. Caroline Green from the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford told the BBC that proper training is essential for those using these technologies.
“Healthcare professionals need to understand how to use AI responsibly and be aware of its limitations.” She adds: “Without the right safeguards, there’s a risk of inaccurate information being generated or misinterpreted.”
AI Detects Early Signs of More than 1,000 Diseases
Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has developed a new AI-based machine learning model that detects the early signs of certain diseases long before symptoms appear, according to the company.
The system was trained on medical data from 500,000 participants in a UK health database and can reportedly predict disease diagnoses with high accuracy years in advance.
Dr. Slavé Petrovski, who led the research, explained to Sky News that, “Many illnesses begin developing long before any visible symptoms emerge.”
“By the time a patient visits the doctor due to noticeable signs,” he said, “the disease process has often been underway for quite some time.”
Dr. Petrovski noted that the system can identify biological markers in individuals that strongly indicate the future development of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), kidney disease, and several others.
AI Clinical Chatbots
A recent U.S. study has raised questions about the reliability of standard LLMs such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini in supporting medical professionals.
Researchers found that these general-purpose AI tools struggled to deliver evidence-based responses to clinicians’ medical queries. Useful answers were offered only 2% to 10% of the time.
However, a newer system called ChatRWD showed far stronger results. It provided relevant answers to 58% of the questions. The system proves that specialized AI systems trained on medical data may outperform general chatbots in clinical settings.
According to a 2024 insight report from the World Economic Forum’s Digital Healthcare Transformation Initiative, digital interfaces are playing a growing role in patient triage and care management.
The report highlights a case study on the digital patient platform Huma, which was able to reduce hospital readmission rates by 30%, cut the time clinicians spent reviewing patients by up to 40%.
The report suggests that healthy individuals could use self-monitoring devices to improve their physical and mental well-being, while patients managing health conditions will benefit from an expanding range of digital tools and personalized care solutions.
