Artificial intelligence, worries in the workplace but pleases in healthcare: 'Improves care and cuts red tape'

If Italians fear artificial intelligence in the workplace because they are afraid that it will steal their jobs, they are instead ready to welcome it in hospitals or doctors' offices because the majority - six out of ten - are convinced that in the next ten years it will make a positive impact by both improving care and cutting red tape. "We can no longer tackle the problems of Italian healthcare with tools from the past. Artificial intelligence is not a magic wand, but a support for carers. For example, it can help to tackle long-standing problems such as waiting lists," warns Giovanni Migliore, president of Fiaso - the federation that brings together managers who lead local health authorities and hospitals - who, on the occasion of the official launch yesterday of the Observatory on AI in Healthcare, which has already mapped around forty projects underway in Italian hospital wards, also released the data of a wide-ranging survey by Demopolis, conducted on a sample of 3.400 people: the survey shows that for 61% of Italians, artificial intelligence can positively change - in contrast to only 38% in the world of work - the management of health and the treatment of diseases.

After all, artificial intelligence is already well established in medicine and healthcare: from the diagnostic tools that increasingly employ it to the search for new drugs. But now, with its use in the management of healthcare, thanks also to the possibility of tapping into the ocean of health data that will transit on the health files of Italians (carefully anonymised) as well as throughout the National Health Service, it is hoped that it will finally be possible to make the healthcare machine more efficient, as it continues to make water from all sides amid waste and bureaucratic obstacles that complicate the lives of doctors and patients. Italians agree on this: among the advantages of Ia are rapid analysis of clinical data (73%), reduced bureaucracy (61%) and better organisation of services (54%). It is no coincidence that the projects already mapped by Fiaso range from intelligent triage in the emergency room to algorithms for predicting the risk of heart attack and support in choosing which medical examinations to prescribe in order to reduce waiting lists. In essence, more speed and less waste. "The Observatory is a strategic tool for guiding the change that is already underway," explained Fiaso's president, "and is intended to be a showcase for innovation, able to census and accelerate what is already happening on the ground. The projects already collected, from hospitals and local health authorities from North to South Italy, offer solutions that can be used for the automation of medical records, early diagnosis, and remote monitoring of patients with chronic diseases, meeting the demands of citizens.

Change, however, according to Fiaso, must also be shared. For this reason, at the Logos & Téchne Forum in Syracuse, scheduled for 26-28 June, Fiaso will also present Next Health, the collaborative innovation platform that connects public health companies, universities, start-ups and companies. 'The aim is to move,' concluded Migliore, 'from a logic of isolated experimentation to a structured process. The forum, hosted in the city of Archimedes, will also be the stage for the 'Hackathon AI for Health', in which multidisciplinary teams of researchers and practitioners will develop innovative ideas to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment.