AI transforming health care

While AI was historically viewed as the stuff of the future or science fiction, portrayed in stories about talking computers or human-like androids, it has become a real-world reality integrated into multiple aspects of our lives—from helping with everyday tasks to diagnosing and treating disease, including cancer.

Don’t fret, however, thinking that machines will start treating your cancer or your next doctor will be an android. AI can’t replace a doctor who provides the quality and compassionate care you need and deserve. AI can’t hold your hand or offer words of comfort.

“The machine is not a physician with years of bedside experience, accumulated knowledge and real-life experience of each patient,” says Sanjeet Dadwal, MD, professor and Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at City of Hope. “That is what a machine cannot learn.”

However, AI is a valuable tool that may:

• Offer screening and diagnostic recommendations after quickly analyzing a patient’s scans and images.
• Point doctors to potential areas of concern during screening procedures, such as a colonoscopy.
• Accelerate drug discovery by processing information from millions of data sets
• Predict possible treatment outcomes by analyzing treatment results from millions of previous patients and match them to current patients with similar profiles
• Offer patients information and diversions, such as music and meditation, through smart devices and virtual home assistants.

In this course, we will explore:

• AI and cancer detection
• AI and cancer treatment
• AI and cancer research
• Other ways AI is changing cancer care