Sukanya Mandal
IEEE member and data science professional (India)

“Besides steps and heart rate, there are wearables that capture data about blood pressure, blood oxygen, calorie count, sleep tracking, etc. Five years from now, wearables will be an inevitable part of our lives, with the ability to monitor health conditions and predict the cause of diseases based on the symptoms; suggest diets for proper lifestyle management; measure stress and raise alerts; monitor air quality and humidity in our homes and adjust the temperature based on our body temperatures, thus improving the quality of our lives.”

Kevin Curran
IEEE Senior member and Professor of Cybersecurity at Ulster University (U.K.)

“Artificial intelligence can power fantastic analysis of symptoms and global trends. Healthcare providers will be able to analyze patient data to predict the root cause, delivering results faster than traditional methods. AI will also be used to search for outliers, and hybrid detection systems will combine to improve the detection rate of diseases and reduce the false-alarm rate. Behavioral AI analytics techniques may also contribute, as it can assist in isolating symptoms that do not conform to expected behaviors.”

Tom Coughlin
IEEE Fellow and President at Coughlin Associates (U.S.)

“Many people like to talk, and if we can talk with something, we often open up and provide more information versus other types of interfaces. For this reason, I think that chatbots powered by machine learning could be very effective in evaluating the health of many people.”

Kevin Curran
IEEE Senior member and Professor of Cybersecurity at Ulster University (U.K.)

“Biometrics, of which facial recognition is a subset, is a growing technology and could become more popular in identifying medical symptoms. AI can replicate some specific elements of intellectual ability. First, the machine learning algorithm gathers facts about a situation through inputs, then compares this information to stored data and decides what the information signifies. The computer runs through various possible actions and predicts which action will be most successful based on the collected information. This could especially be applied in the domain of spotting skin cancers.”

Karen Panetta
IEEE Fellow and Dean of Graduate Engineering, Tufts University (U.S.)

“There are currently FDA-approved robots in the operating room, especially for knee surgery. The next logical step is to use AI to see and operate with absolute precision incapable by a human. For instance, when removing burnt/necrosis tissue, AI will be able to better detect the tissue to be removed, leaving the good tissue intact. This is difficult to do by ‘eyeing’ it with human eyes. All this sounds amazing and it is, but we need to caution that the human should always be in the loop and supervising.”

Karen Panetta
IEEE Fellow and Dean of Graduate Engineering, Tufts University (U.S.)

“When seeking treatments, we often look for a ‘second opinion.’ With AI, you can get a ‘billion opinion,’ meaning that many different scenarios of a patient exhibiting the same symptoms and same conditions will have confidence that the doctor’s diagnosis is correct and that the course of treatment is the best option. More than likely, future medical professionals will rely more on AI rather than the comparatively small pool of patients they have served.”

Shervin Shirmohammadi
IEEE Fellow and Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa (Canada)

“Because AI can continuously monitor a person's many physiological characteristics, not only will it be able to provide personalized health care for that specific person, but also take action in life-or-death situations. For example, it can detect if the person's heart rate is irregular or unusually changing for that specific person, and alert them to seek medical attention. One example is where a man's Apple Watch detected an unusual heart rate increase, and alerted him to go to emergency room, where he was diagnosed with pulmonary embolism: a potentially fatal situation had he waited longer.”

Karen Panetta
IEEE Fellow and Dean of Graduate Engineering, Tufts University (U.S.)

“AI is already supporting our households through temperature control, real-time monitoring, and controlling our consumer devices by simply asking our AI assistant to perform a specific command. In the future, your smart refrigerator may know you are out of milk and bread and create a shopping list and automatically have it delivered. We know that self-driving vehicles will allow those who do not own a car or can no longer drive, to call upon AI controlled self-driving cars. For most elderly, these rides are essential to getting to medical appointments or to get food.”

Shervin Shirmohammadi
IEEE Fellow and Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa (Canada)

“Cameras installed in a person's smart home can detect the person falling and not being able to get up, what the person is eating – which is important for dietary management – if the person has taken their medicine, if the person has sufficient physical activity per day, whether a door needs to be opened or closed as the person is moving with the help of a walker or a wheelchair, detecting fire or water leak, calling for help when necessary, etc. Even readings such as heart rate, body temperature, or step count, which traditionally required a wearable device, can now be done through a camera at home.”

Tom Coughlin
IEEE Fellow and President at Coughlin Associates (U.S.)

“AI can be trained to make diagnoses that rival or exceed human doctors in many instances. As the amount of data on illnesses grows, they will increasingly be able to detect cancers and perhaps even precursors to cancers. The latter feature, combined with regular monitoring via sensors, may allow treatments that can reverse a cancer before it can start.”