Artificial Intelligence
in Healthcare
Vocabulary
| heart | surgery | operation (2) |
| vital | area (3) | down to the millimeter |
| organ | provide | patient (2) |
| provide | rather (2) | dream (2) |
| gather | capacity | artificial intelligence |
| at least | suggest | work out (2) |
| flow (2) | forecast | generate (2) |
| similar | case (2) | treatment |
| clinic | funding | prediction |
| precise | specialize | break down (2) |
| luxury | potential | personalize |
| digital | process | simulation |
| overall | job loss | customize |
| option | advanced | replacement |
| enable | team (2) |
Video: AI in Healthcare
Transcript
Heart surgery is precise work — down to the millimeter. An operation on this vital organ costs thousands of euros and often takes several hours.
Providing each patient with customized treatment is the dream of Titus Kuhne of the Heart Centre in Berlin. He and his team are gathering large amounts of data that artificial intelligence will be able to work out treatment suggestions to future patients.
Titus Kuhne, German Heart Center, Berlin: “It’s kind of similar to weather forecasts: lots of information flows into the computer, which generates a prediction and a weather simulation for the next few days.
We use simulations like that to treat individual patients. We don’t have the capacity in the clinic to run a simulation on the computer for each case. And this way, the work is broken down.”
One of the Heart Center’s partners is a software company, Thousand Shapes. The IT experts specialize in the area of artificial intelligence in medicine. So they know the potential.
Hans Lamecker, 1000 Shapes: “Personalized treatment will be available in the future. It’s already possible in theory, but it’s still a luxury product.
Artificial intelligence will help turn this luxury product into an everyday product.”
Germany’s digital association, Bitkom, says the process is not going fast enough. It’s calling on the government to put more funding into artificial intelligence.
They don’t believe it will lead to job losses.
Christian Kulick, Bitkom: “We think artificial intelligence will actually create jobs, overall. It shouldn’t be seen as a replacement for human beings, but rather as an assistant, for example, to help us create better more advanced, treatment options.”
To enable their research and development in AI, Bitkom is asking the government to provide at least four billion euros over the next four years.
Questions
1. Anyone can study and learn to be a surgeon. True or false?
2. Are medicine and information technology totally separate, or can they be integrated?
3. Did Titus Kuhne of the Heart Center, Berlin give an analogy? What was the analogy he gave?
4. The computer programming and software development are done entirely by doctors and IT experts working in the Heart Center. Is this wrong or right?
5. Can everyone benefit from customize medical treatment now?
6. Is technical progress taking place rapidly? What do industry experts suggest?
7. Are there some potential drawbacks or disadvantages to artificial intelligence in medicine? What does the digital expert think?
A. Do people complain about modern medicine, are they satisfied with it, both, neither or in between?
B. What will happen in the future?
C. What would happen when artificial intelligence completely merges with medicine? Would it be wonderful, great, good, both good and bad, neither, in-between, not good, bad or horrible?
D. Could artificial intelligence be applied or integrated into your industry, area or specialization?
E. Would it be fantastic, great, good, both good and bad, both, neither, in-between, not very good, bad or terrible for AI to be incorporation in industry and everyday life?
