Would you let a robot save your life?

Would you let a robot save your life?

Have you ever thought about the future of medicine? What if your Doctor became a robot?

Imagine the possibility that future surgeries will be practiced by Artificial Intelligence on our beloved ones or even ourselves. Some studies and research have shown that an Artificial Intelligence dependent health care is on an optimistic path. It even engaged interest from big tech companies, healthcare providers and government. However, it is a matter of life and death and leaving the faith of future generations under the complete hand of robotics can be a delicate question. Hence, to what extent can we trust AI healthcare. In this article, we will be presenting a revolutionary AI Doctor trained by the start-up Babylon Healthcare.

Dr. Ali Parsa, founder of the Babylon Health Digital Health start-up, has developed an Artificial Intelligence trained Doctor. At this stage, the AI has been able to pass an official examination of medical students. The average mark obtained at MRCGP, the UK entry exam for specialist training that tests the ability of medical students to diagnose patients, was 72% in the last five years. But what grade did Babylon Health get? The result is surprising, 82%. It clearly shows the fact that Artificial intelligence beat human doctors’.

The brain of Babylon's artificial doctor, who has raised more than $ 85 million since its development five years ago, works when it finds itself in a test environment. However, regulations are not allowing Babylon’s AI to operate and provide medical surgeries. At this stage, the artificial doctor is only able to provide medical advices and may soon have the green light to diagnose and write prescriptions. A major step towards ambitious goals of making health services accessible to everyone on the planet. In fact, more than five million people in the world do not have access to surgery. If a robot doctor could make quick diagnoses, he could prevent certain diseases from becoming very expensive for governments or insurance.

Babylon has a network of 250 doctors who can perform video-conference consultations. This service can be sold directly to suppliers or consumers. Adding to that, the start-up is also providing a medical advisor software that can be used to scrutinize a possible illness.

What Parsa has been trying to do during these last years is to get around the encounter with human doctors. Indeed, what we are mainly looking for is a treatment and not only a diagnosis. This technology advance will help us to avoid a loss of money in order to treat common illness.

Having an AI Doctor would considerably reduce the risk of mistakes in diagnosis, therefore we will be able to cut costs on irrelevant treatments.

In terms of cost, Babylon services charges to the British government $80 per patient per year. On the other hand, a typical doctor clinic would be paid up to $300 for older people or patient with chronic illness.

Nowadays, Babylon is operating in London and more than 26’000 citizens have switched their traditional consultancies to Babylon’s service. Another 20’000 people are on a waiting list to experience this medical innovation.

Babylon’s next market target is the US. Indeed, its economy is highly oriented into healthcare. Physical and virtual clinics are planned for 2019. Automated-care model might be the answer for our coming generations, and cost-saving is one of its key success factors.