Why there’s a place for AI in our healthcare

Artificial intelligence touches so many aspects of our daily lives. Spotify uses it to suggest songs to us. Banks use it to determine loan applications. Businesses use it to provide customer support online.

But is there a place for AI in those services we consider most vital, our healthcare?

Almost a year since I was sworn in as NSW Minister for Health, I know all too well the enormity of the challenges confronting our health system.

From worker shortages, to increasing presentations to our emergency departments, and the ongoing impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, these are complex and longstanding issues.

Yet, to ensure our community receives the essential health services we deserve, we need to embrace every resource in our rucksack.

Not merely bricks and mortar at the expense of workforce. Not solely workforce at the expense of innovation. Not simply technology in the absence of human judgment.

But ensuring infrastructure and innovation work to support our workforce in delivering quality healthcare. A new taskforce to guide the use of AI in NSW Health has now convened for the very first time.

AI is already used in different parts of our health system. In Western Sydney, it’s helping us understand the prevalence of long Covid-19 and support clinicians to assess sepsis.

At the RPA virtual hospital we’re piloting the use of AI in a wound care app. Did you know, we now have the ability to use image recognition technology to accurately measure a wound’s dimensions, perimeters, and surface area, and to analyse the tissue composition of a wound over time, as healing takes place.

I am inspired by the possibilities AI offers in healthcare. But I know that it’s not without risk.

This task-force will identify what else we can be doing as well as ensuring we can do it safely and securely. Establishing a framework around how we use AI is an important step towards meeting the needs of our patients, workforce and community.

Looking abroad, AI is being utilised more and more in healthcare settings.

In Canada, AI is assisting radiologists in diagnosing conditions with greater accuracy and efficiency. In the Netherlands, it’s combing health data to identify individuals most at risk of certain disease. In Germany, it’s allow patients be monitored remotely, in the safety and comfort of their own home through wearable devices that track vital signs in real time.

I’ve said time again, I want to put people at the centre of our health system.

It’s about our patients who access its services and our essential workers who deliver them.

So the first order of business for the taskforce is to explore how AI can support our essential health workers and how it can foster better experiences and outcomes for patients.

When it comes to delivering the world class health services our community expect and deserve, nothing is off the table.

I’m excited to work across our health system and across sectors to explore how the tools of AI can drive better health outcomes in NSW.

Ryan Park is the NSW Minister for Health.