Ciara Finlay
Medtech and Engineering Senior Executive, Irish Medtech – Ibec
Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform healthcare; from life-saving innovations to efficient medical interventions. Explore Ireland’s role and regulatory efforts in digital health.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is spurring a new era where data is transformed into actionable insights. While AI is making headlines daily, it’s not a new concept; everyone — from philosophers, mathematicians and sci-fi writers — has been imagining its feasibility and implications for society since the 1950s.
AI development and healthcare potential
The technological leap that brought us forward was Geoffrey Hinton’s algorithm to allow machine learning in the 1980s. Now, with greater computer processing capacity, affordability AI has broken into the mainstream with generative AI capturing imaginations.
There is no greater example of AI’s potential than in healthcare. For instance, research provisioned by Medtech Europe revealed that AI could potentially save 400,000 lives annually. There are eight key areas for AI in healthcare: wearables, imaging, labs, monitoring, real-world data, virtual health assistance, personalised apps and robotics.
Notable benefits of AI in healthcare
- AI increases the success rate of medical interventions, as robot-assisted surgery can contribute to a 52% increase in successful operations;
- Robots are supporting an estimated 30% of clinical nurse tasks that do not involve direct patient interaction and facilitating clinical radiology workflow by image acquisition.
AI could potentially save
400,000 lives annually.
Building AI awareness
Ibec Digital Health Working Group’s vision is to enable Ireland to become a recognised global hub for digital health. To achieve this, it has developed a cross-sectoral campaign ‘Where Digital Health Thrives’ to build awareness, offer industry foresight and advocate for policies for business success.
At a national level, Ireland’s Government published its national strategy ‘AI – Here for Good’ in 2021 to steer AI to benefit the economy and society, within a people-centred, ethical approach.
AI regulation overview
In the EU, the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) will create harmonised legislation with a risk-based approach and transparency requirements. It will determine how, and if, new AI-enabled healthtech will reach patients and healthcare systems.
Irish Medtech has been working with MedTech Europe to ensure the regulation is fit for purpose by inputting comments, at a member-state level, into national contributions to the European Commission’s overarching guidelines.
