The path to personalized wellness will require artificial intelligence/machine learning applied to integrative medicine (holistic care for the mind, body, and spirit) in an ethical fashion. This philosophy was birthed from my doctoral research at Georgia State University. I challenged doctors to view screenshots of an AI/ML platform used in a few U.S. hospitals. They described the way they heal humans using a holistic approach and strategies for applying emerging technology.
Since the 1990’s, more U.S patients began searching for alternatives to allopathic or “Western” medicine. People who want individualized care choose integrative medicine (IM) which focuses on health and healing, emphasizing the centrality of the patient-physician relationship.
Healthcare innovators are developing artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help doctors. This emerging technology is called predictive and prescriptive analytics (PPA). PPA uses complex algorithms and patient health data to predict patient outcomes and recommend the treatments, interventions, and medications doctors should use. PPA is currently used in many U.S. hospitals but is not available for integrative medicine or the primary care setting.
Research question: How can predictive and prescriptive analytics tools support/innovate decision-making for integrative medicine practitioners?
IM provides the best conventional care and uses complementary and alternative options (like Chinese medicine, acupuncture, naturopathic medicine and many others). There is collaboration across a community of care providers. They consider all options to create a holistic care plan for the mind, body, and spirit. Then, they empower patients to choose the best options and make lifestyle changes gradually.
PPA worked great for exposing historical information that doctors often miss. There was a benefit from receiving a clear snapshot of a patient’s condition, their clinical risk factors and socioeconomic determinants of health. However, using the future-focused task-technology fit theory, the research showed that PPA could actually do more harm than good in its current state.
Many healthcare providers felt PPA was too rigid, grouping patients into generalized buckets, eliminating the ability to provide individualized care. Future technology must be designed to be more flexible, integrating patient data from multiple sources, and supporting bi-directional communication between the entire care community.
To answer the research question, YES with significant changes PPA can support IM. Future algorithms must capture and analyze subjective factors like (how are you feeling today or describe your pain on a scale from 1-10). The technology must always support ethical behaviors. And finally, PPA SHOULD NEVER REPLACE the human experience between patients and doctors.