One of the areas where AI has the potential to do most good is healthcare. As health systems across the globe face rising demand from growing and ageing populations while grappling with increasingly complex care regimens, AI may provide at least some of the solutions.
Recently published research from pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca found that a majority of people in Ireland (56 per cent) expect AI to change or transform healthcare in the next five years.
The survey also found that the use of medical AI tools is broadly supported by the Irish public, with seven out of 10 people saying they are comfortable with AI helping reduce waiting times and 64 per cent happy for it to be used to speed up test results. However, half of respondents said they are concerned about doctors using AI to assist in decision making and more than two-thirds are concerned about AI replacing human doctors and nurses.
“It’s clear that people in Ireland are open to using AI to improve cancer services, in particular to help gather key information quickly and to reduce waiting times for procedures and appointments,” said Prof Maeve Lowery, consultant medical oncologist at St James’s Hospital. “Of course, they still want their healthcare provider to make the final decisions and provide personalised care.”
READ MORE
Although health lags behind other sectors in its adoption of the technology, AI is now regularly being employed by clinicians for diagnostic imaging, clinical decision support, patient scheduling and administrative automation. It is also accelerating research and drug development by analysing complex data sets more efficiently.
Raymond Martin, director in health technology with PwC Ireland, says the “greatest opportunity” lies beyond automating individual tasks. “AI can help redesign patient pathways, streamline decision making and improve how care is delivered,” he says. “Based on our work in the health sector in Ireland, the organisations creating the most value are using AI to transform processes and operating models, not simply digitise existing ways of working.”
His PwC Ireland colleague Ray Flynn, also director in health technology, says that, given this rising demand, the health system must urgently embrace these opportunities.
“AI can improve productivity, reduce administrative burden and support better decision making, helping health services make more effective use of finite resources. However, technology alone is not enough.”
The greatest benefits, he says, come when AI is combined with service redesign and new ways of working. “The goal should be to augment healthcare professionals, not replace them, enabling them to spend more time on patient care while supporting a more sustainable healthcare system.”
The potential of the largely untapped gold mine that is health data can finally be realised with the use of AI, adds Flynn. “AI can help identify patterns, predict future demand and surface insights at a scale that would be difficult through traditional analysis alone. It is also enabling organisations to connect disparate data sources and integrate unstructured information, creating a more complete view of patients, services and outcomes.”
This, he says, can support earlier intervention, better resource allocation and improved patient outcomes.
“Modern healthcare systems generate vast quantities of data every day, ranging from electronic health records and medical imaging to genomic information, biomarker data, wearable device outputs, clinical trial data sets and real-world patient outcomes,” says Ann Henry, partner, AI and IP litigation, with legal firm Bird & Bird Ireland.
“While these data sets contain valuable insights, their scale and complexity frequently exceed the capacity of traditional analytical methods and human review alone.” AI, she says, is uniquely suited to this challenge because it can process and analyse millions of data points simultaneously, identify complex patterns and correlations, and generate insights that would be difficult, or in some cases impossible, to uncover manually.
One of the most exciting – and necessary – developments is the use of AI in reshaping drug discovery and clinical development. Right now, a single drug can take well over a decade to bring to market, costing up to – and sometimes more than – $1 billion in the process.
“AI is being used to analyse clinical trial data, optimise clinical trial design and generally drive down costs at the early stages,” says Henry. Production facilities and pharmaceutical supply chains are also expected to benefit from AI-driven efficiencies and predictive capabilities, she adds.
But while AI offers significant opportunities across healthcare, Henry says its deployment also raises important legal, ethical and governance issues. “Trust is fundamental in healthcare, and organisations seeking to realise the benefits of AI must ensure that innovation is accompanied by appropriate safeguards, transparency and accountability,” she says.
AI is already making a practical difference in hospitals all over Ireland, helping them run safely and continuously, says Rhonda Doyle, country president at Schneider Electric Ireland.
“One of the fastest-growing applications is in hospital facilities and estates, where AI helps minimise downtime, improve resilience and maintain high standards of patient care – while also cutting energy use, emissions and operating costs,” Doyle explains.
Schneider Electric’s research found that hospitals can cut energy consumption by up to 18 per cent through targeted digital retrofits.
“We’re increasingly seeing AI-enabled building management systems and smart building technologies used to optimise how Ireland’s hospitals consume energy and run critical systems, without disrupting clinical care,” says Doyle. For example, AI applied to HVAC can continuously adjust temperature, ventilation and indoor air quality based on occupancy, weather and real-time equipment performance.
“AI-driven analytics can help teams prioritise what to fix first, predict failures before they happen, and optimise energy consumption dynamically across entire healthcare estates – all while improving comfort for patients and staff, and avoiding disruption to clinical services.”
Doyle says it’s foolish to think AI will solve every capacity challenge, “but it can materially reduce wasted time, wasted energy and avoidable downtime – freeing teams to focus on frontline outcomes”.
