A new report indicates that Australia’s healthcare sector has the potential to extract billions of dollars in value from synthetic AI if it can accelerate responsible adoption.
Titled Australia’s Artificial Intelligence Opportunities, the report by Microsoft and the Australian Technology Council, the nation’s highest body representing the technology sector, explores potential economic opportunities from innovative AI adoption in key sectors, including healthcare.
WHY IT IMPORTANT
Based on the report, depending on the pace of adoption, the healthcare sector could rake in between $5 billion and $13 billion per year by 2030.
The main driver for this is innovative AI capabilities:
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enable direct patient care by reducing time spent on administrative tasks – it is said that generalized AI can automate a quarter of nursing tasks;
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to enable more personalized care by embedding in wearable devices; And
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to support the transition to more proactive models of care by enabling earlier diagnosis on a large scale – most Australians are reported to be interested in using digital self-service for pre-visit tasks.
However, to realize these benefits, the industry must maintain confidentiality and patient safety with “robust” protocols.
“[T]o To fully grasp this opportunity, healthcare organizations and professionals will need to rapidly adopt AI, while continuing to ensure patient care, safety and privacy,” said Technology Council Australia CEO Kate Pounder.
TREND TO BIGGER WOMAN
Besides healthcare, manufacturing, retail and professional and financial services are also poised to benefit from AI, which could contribute up to $115 billion in value to Australia’s overall economy by the end of this decade by improving these industries and enabling the creation of new products and services.
It only needs deeper cooperation to capture these economic benefits by leveraging its comparative advantage in digital technology, including a large and highly skilled workforce, strong investments in digital infrastructure, and high levels of cloud adoption.
However, based on the report, Australia is facing barriers to achieving these benefits in four areas: technological capacity, business readiness, awareness and skills and responsible artificial intelligence. The report outlines strategic actions to address these issues, including identifying opportunities and visions for AI at large, assessing readiness, encouraging adoption and innovation, upskilling the workforce, and developing responsible AI governance frameworks.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, the Digital Health Collaborative Research Center’s innovation director, AI ethicist Stefan Harrer, came up with a The paper, which proposes for the first time a comprehensive ethical framework for the responsible use, design, and management of general AI applications in healthcare and medicine, is published in The Lancet’s eBioMedicine.
ON PROFILE
“With AI artificial intelligence, Australia is well positioned to lead the way in efficient delivery of healthcare services… The country has an excellent opportunity to harness the true potential of dynamic AI and continuously enhance our reputation as having one of the best healthcare systems in the world. The technology can also help Australia overcome a number of existing challenges in terms of patient availability,” said Pounder.
“Microsoft is committed to fostering closer collaboration between industry and government to ensure the country can realize the potential economic benefits of artificial intelligence and do so responsibly. Building trust in this technology is critical to harnessing its innovation capabilities and helping Australia become a global leader in this area,” said Lee Hickin, Microsoft’s chief technology officer, Microsoft ANZ.
