It's 2070, as you walk into an urgent care clinic, "an Alexa-esque device" asks you all the pertinent questions, looks at your electronic health record, takes vitals, orders up tests and determines the best medication and treatment options.
That's the basic scenario described by Northwestern University researchers in a Kellogg School of Management Insight article that envisions a world where artificial intelligence eventually replaces doctors.
David Dranove, Northwestern's Walter J. McNerney Professor of Health Industry Management, and Craig Garthwaite, director of the healthcare program at Kellogg School of Management, write in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper about the implications of such incorporation of AI into health care — particularly how it would affect the central role of the physician.
The promise of AI is currently being developed in the patient care areas of diagnosis and treatment, the authors write, with some studies suggesting that AI may pick up on signals that doctors miss.
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