Strong synergies between healthcare and research are crucial to develop new eHealth models.
The last two years have proved that digital technology is a critical enabler of all aspects of society, including healthcare. Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming digital healthcare, leading to exciting opportunities for screening, decision making support, biomarker detection, disease treatment and personalised or ‘precision’ medicine delivery.
Data-rich era
Increasingly our world is driven by data. A major challenge for precision medicine is developing and deploying innovative and agile solutions that can unlock the data needed for precision medicine.
Our goal is to have AI used by clinicians in a way that augments their abilities to make better, more accurate decisions and faster, more informed diagnoses. With access to large reams of medical information from different medical and research sources, clinicians can get a more holistic picture allowing them to get the information they need to make more informed decisions around treatment pathways for their patients.
Evolution of medicine
One such example that the ADAPT Centre is leading on from a data-science perspective is ‘Precision ALS’. It is an ambitious academic, clinical and industry research programme that will provide new insights in our understanding of motor neuron disease (MND), also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
The pan-European programme will result in advanced data-driven prediction models for progression of the disease in patients and next-generation data analysis that facilitates clinical insights and treatment. It will enable the integration, analysis and data-informed decision making to reveal new understandings of the disease and to research new treatment plans.
New opportunities to arise
Ireland will be leading the development of metadata management tools for advanced integration of real-world clinical data sets, including remote monitoring. The development of a whole illness model of disease within the wider healthcare ecosystem opens up the opportunity for new products and services, new therapeutics, diagnostic tools and biomarkers.
Expectations are high for the future of AI-driven healthcare. Close collaboration between researchers and industry will help us unlock real-world data in an ethical way. This is the key to realising true ‘precision medicine’ and providing the most suitable medicine, at the right dose, for the right persona, at the right time and at a reasonable cost.
