DATA SCIENCE (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OR MACHINE LEARNING): MODERN DAYS SCIENTIFIC TOOLS FOR HEALTH SCIENCE

Rakesh Jain1, Ashutosh Pathak2, Deepak Parab3, Saurabh Arora2, and Rohan Kumar4

1.           Bank of America, Tower A, Building 3, Candor Techspace, I ITSEZ, Dundahera, Gurugram, Haryana

2.           Auriga Research Private Limited, 3/17, Block 3,  Kirti Nagar Industrial Area, Kirti Nagar, New Delhi

3.           Metrohm India Pvt Ltd, 384, Fourrts Avenue, Near PTC, Annan Indira Nagar, Toraipakkam, Chennsi

4.           Biotage India Private Limited, 211 Second Floor, DLF, Tower B, Jasola, New Delhi

The global pandemic has dramatically increased the need as well as the importance of data science and analytics professionals. We have seen over the months how data science professionals have come together and worked on COVID-19 healthcare data and built AI/ML models to track the outbreak and use the information for contact tracing, screening applications and vaccine development.

Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract knowledge and insights from noisy, structured and unstructured data and apply knowledge and actionable insights from data across a broad range of application domains to understand and analyse the actual phenomenon. 

A human system delivers a few terabytes of data everyday which comes from brain function, heart functioning, metabolism, physical work and many more and we can use these through data mining, artificial intelligence or machine learning and imaging. It uses techniques and theories drawn from many fields within the context of mathematics, statistics, computer science, information science, and domain knowledge.

Talking about health data science, it refers to any data that pertains to the biomedical sciences and public health.  The data might originate from observational studies, clinical trials, computational biology, electronic medical records, genetic and genomic data. A data scientist can make use of the available genomic data and upon its analysis can provide an understanding of genetic issues and can also help in studying reactions to various kinds of drugs and its effect on diseases.

With all this data and the right application of tools and methods, we can improve patient outcomes and reduce health care costs. This is precisely where a healthcare data scientist comes in. The intersection of healthcare and data science is the emerging area of healthcare research and operations. A data scientist can use structured and unstructured data available with modern day tools to deliver a predictive diagnostic model. For the healthcare industry, Data Scientists can contribute by - 

1.      Collecting patient data and information

2.      Analyzing Hospital needs and assistance

3.      Implementation of structured algorithm from unstructured and raw data of patients

4.      Help in predictive diagnostics

A data scientist can and is already contributing to the healthcare industry by providing a critical tool for diagnostics and predictive diagnosis. These are:

Medical Imaging: This includes analysis of images from CT scan, X Ray, MRI, USG and other techniques. These data can use machine learning and AI to retrieve quickly and accurately analyse the image and  gather the full information from the images to provide right healthcare and prognostic solutions.

Predictive Analytics: Unavailability of information about a patient may lead to wrong or irrelevant treatment of the patient, which may include blood sugar, blood pressure, temperature and other parameters including fatigue. Here comes the predictive diagnosis, where doctors can correlate all the data for proper diagnosis and identify the disease or ailment. This will help with proper medication, hospitalisation and treatment. This will help in managing and treatment of chronice and genetic anomalies and predicting the future course of action for a patient.

Drug Discovery: current pandemic of COVID 19 has shown us a new world of danger and isolation. This has resulted in a very promising opportunity for data scientists to contribute to the social cause. With the help of data scientist, we can now faster than ever gather and analyze information and formulate vaccines or drugs to keep our society secure.

Reference:

1.   The role of data science in healthcare advancements: applications, benefits and future prospects. Ir J Med Sci2021 Aug 16. DOI: 10.1007/s11845-021-02730-z.  Shri Venkat Gunturi Subrahmanya, Dashrathraj K Shetty, Vathsala Patil, B M Zeeshan Hameed, Rahul Paul, Komal Smriti, Nitesh Naik, Bhaskar K Somani

2.       All about Data Science in Healthcare: Detailed 2021 by Sauvik Acharjee. Jigsawacademy