Dimitrios Kalogeropoulos: Perspectives on artificial intelligence in healthcare from a Patient and Public Involvement Panel in Japan – an exploratory study
Dimitrios Kalogeropoulos, CEO at Global Health and Digital Innovation Foundation, shared on LinkedIn:
“Perspectives on artificial intelligence in healthcare from a Patient and Public Involvement Panel in Japan: an exploratory study
Public and private investments in AI for healthcare are rapidly expanded. AI for healthcare as currently conceived involves the ability to process and learn from massive amounts of data, and includes machine and deep learning, expert systems, NLP, healthcare informatics, and robotics. Despite investments, there is a growing recognition that little is known about the views of the end-users of these systems, including patients, members of the public, and healthcare professionals (HCPs). Given the risks there have been calls for increased stakeholder involvement.
There is a growing body of literature seeking to fill this gap. This article provides a framework review to extend the research in the Japanese context noting that insights from the Japanese context can provide a counterbalance to an overly Western-dominated discourse on AI. Japan is a key case study through which to explore the opportunities and issues of AI in healthcare as it has ‘a technologically savvy populace, well-developed healthcare system founded on universal coverage, and pre-existing academic, government, and industrial collaborative alignments’. Japan has been actively investing in the development of AI for healthcare purposes, while the regulatory environment is being adjusted to facilitate the agglomeration and use of personal data on health.
In addition to funding deployed for the creation of ten ‘AI Hospitals’ that integrate AI into healthcare practice, a collaborative research project (‘Ensuring the benefits of AI in healthcare for all: Designing a Sustainable Platform for Public and Professional Stakeholder Engagement’ – the AIDE Project) is being carried out between teams at Osaka University in Japan and the University of Oxford in the UK. Now near its completion the project informs research teams and provide insights on AI in healthcare from a patient and public perspective.
The study results underscore the anticipation that AI has the potential to enhance health system efficiencies, improve the quality of care through better technology utilization, increase access to care, and mitigate disparities. However, there are concerns about exacerbating existing disparities, alongside resistance to change and mistrust regarding funding equity.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Katirai A, Yamamoto BA, Kogetsu A and Kato K. Perspectives on artificial intelligence in healthcare from a Patient and Public Involvement Panel in Japan: an exploratory study.”