Artificial Intelligence in Health Care Delivery System - Essay Example

Artificial Intelligence in health care delivery system
Health care delivery system is one of vital component of public welfare schemes of the government, throughout the world. In the fast changing environment of globalization and technological advancement, healthcare system of US has come under lot of stress from various factors. The transforming socio-economic and political paradigms have adversely affected the healthcare modules. The healthcare is market driven and the various modules, even the essential ones like insurance, accessibility etc are treated like commodities. In such a scenario, healthcare products that are backed by decision support system that provide the healthcare executives with options to choose the right product which would give optimal benefit to the individuals are increasingly becoming popular.
In the market driven health system, consumers or people decide what goods (health module) to buy and at what cost. Therefore, the prices and the level of services become the crucial factor in the exchange of goods or the healthcare services. In the last few decades, United State has seen a marked shift in the healthcare which has moved from public driven policies to market funded paradigms. Healthcare is funded by private agencies and insurers and not by the government. Health insurance purchased by individuals and employers are the primary source of funding for healthcare delivery.
The healthcare related websites offer huge information about the healthcare services that may satisfy the needs of individuals, the family and the businesses. The websites of private insurance players promoting wide range of healthcare products have become the main tools of market strategy. AIG is one of the world’s leading insurance and financial services with operations in more than 130 countries across the globe (aig.com). The company offers huge range of healthcare products in the insurance area for individuals and businesses. It facilitates options and premium calculations, including providing the people to customise products to suit their affordability, requirement and general welfare. Overall this link broadly gives the information so they are able to query in detail about the diseases and health plans with their service providers.
Yes, using information technology in the insurance field greatly promotes artificial intelligence in healthcare. AI can be broadly defined as ‘the study of ideas which enable computers to do the things that make people seem intelligent ... The central goals of Artificial Intelligence are to make computers more useful and to understand the principles which make intelligence possible’ (Winston, 1977). Indeed, the accessibility to the information promotes the most important issue of providing the people with the informed choices that they can exercise according to their individual requirements. Mostly the type of AI used in the healthcare products is the ‘expert system’ and ‘natural language processing’ that primarily relies on huge knowledge base comprising of relevant information, data, rules etc. that are used by the system to come up with the right product for the individuals or group.
One can therefore, conclude that as a healthcare executive, decision support system of these products provided by the well informed and updated website would be highly useful in convincing the public. The availability of these healthcare products and their easy accessibility to the public makes it easy for the executives to disseminate information and promote awareness regarding the huge choices that are available in the market for improved healthcare imperatives.



Reference
AIG. Available from: [Accessed 20 July, 2009].
Winston, P. W.(1977). Artificial Intelligence. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass. Read More