Healthcare in the Future

Whenever I envision myself in the workforce, I imagine how I would live right now, but as with the habit of the start of every new year, my attention turns towards the future. By the time I become an adult, pursuing some profession, what would healthcare look like? Whether my occupation is involved in healthcare or not, I will undoubtedly enjoy, or suffer, from whatever new form healthcare takes on. The general consensus regarding the field will most likely remain the same; doctors are respectable, upstanding citizens of their community. In a profession focused primarily on the well-being of others, this is expected, but the misinformation and disinformation concerning healthcare will probably increase. According to the CCDH, the Covid-19 pandemic caused misinformation and anti-vaccine ideas to proliferate, and a group of people on social media dubbed the ‘Disinformation Dozen’ were responsible for 65% of the anti-vaccine content. With new advancements in generative AI, the spread of misinformation increased tenfold in 2023, and has only been growing from there. I expect that this issue will become so prevalent that by 2040, stricter policies will be enforced, and trust in healthcare and physicians will be somewhat restored.

The World Health Organization projects that there will be a shortfall of 11 million healthcare workers by 2030, and unless several drastic policies are enforced worldwide, we can only expect this deficiency to be exacerbated in the 2040s. We typically only see this deficiency in developing countries today, so by 2040, their situations could worsen or spread to more developed areas. From this, there will probably be two possible scenarios: either governments make healthcare positions more lucrative in developing countries to prevent workers from seeking jobs in high-paying countries like Switzerland or the US, or, the more likely option, governments will spend their funds to improve the efficiency of healthcare. This is where the question of artificial intelligence comes into play. Corporate AI investment has been increasing significantly lately, and its incorporation into business correlates with this, with a 23% increase of usage in businesses from 2023 to 2024. AI is already being implemented throughout the world, but twenty years from now, how will it be used, and how effective will it be?

Although this idea has been echoed repeatedly, I share it as well: AI will not take our jobs entirely. Rather, it will enhance them. Humans have the same fears now as one hundred years ago during the Industrial Revolution. While it is undeniable that machines replaced humans with the most menial tasks, humans were still needed for quality control, programming machines, and the ideas behind each product. In the same way, some aspects of healthcare will certainly be revolutionized, but the system as a whole will be the same. People want to be treated by people. Patients will not relate their trauma to a computer, nor let their pregnancies be governed by computers, nor take advice seriously from a computer, which is why artificial intelligence has its limits. No matter how much AI may grow, I do not believe the government would allow it to have direct control over human lives. Rather, AI will be used to augment the menial tasks of a doctor’s profession. Entering data into patients’ charts and taking a patient’s vitals will be the easiest aspects of healthcare for artificial intelligence to manage. In this way, artificial intelligence will create more personalized healthcare plans for patients, which is where I think the biggest change will be seen.

In a study by the American College of Physicians (ACP), they determined that just 27% of the time spent by a physician on an office day is spent with the patient. The majority of their time was used for desk work and the patients’ electronic health records. Artificial intelligence will probably be used to make the physicians’ current systems more efficient, resulting in fewer doctors required for more patients. For patients, AI systems will pull notes from previous visits and vitals, helping doctors in their decision-making, and also making the transfer between doctors much easier. If someone has to switch to a new doctor for whatever reason, the artificial intelligence system can recognize possible abnormalities that their new physician could not have detected. Through this, any ethical considerations with AI can be negated, since it only acts as advice and the doctor makes the ultimate decision. A typical visit to the doctor’s office will be smoother, both for the patient and the physician. The severity of a patient’s condition can be determined much quicker than today, and doctors can spend their time accordingly to treat patients that require more time. Currently, doctors facing a late patient or a patient who needs more attention can worsen their workload, but AI can carve out more time from the workday to account for these deviations.

Overall, I am optimistic for the future of healthcare. I think that the pride and value of being a doctor will remain despite misinformation and distrust, and the demand for doctors will be as strong as today, if not stronger. Artificial intelligence, as scary as it might seem for some professions, can improve efficiency and effectiveness for almost every sort of doctor, although this discussion mainly focused on primary care physicians. 

Sources

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5. The Disinformation Dozen. Center for Countering Digital Hate, 24 Mar. 2021, https://www.counterhate.com/disinformationdozen.
6. Shin, Jieun. “AI and Misinformation.” 2024 Dean’s Report, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, https://2024.jou.ufl.edu/page/ai-and-misinformation.
7. Sinsky, Christine, et al. “Allocation of Physician Time in Ambulatory Practice: A Time and Motion Study in 4 Specialties.” Annals of Internal Medicine, vol. 165, no. 11, 6 Dec. 2016, pp. 753–760, doi:10.7326/M16-0961. ACP Journals, https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M16-0961.
8. Hasibuzzaman, Manan S., et al. “Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Personalized Medicine.” Journal Name Unknown, 2023, PubMed Central, PMC10617817, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10617817/.