Redefining Healthcare Security in Nigeria using AI

The use of data science and/or machine learning has saved lives, solved health problems, and many more. It has aided in fields like biomedical engineering, biological sciences, genetics, and plant breeding just to name a few. Artificial intelligence is not one technology, but rather a collection of them. Most of these technologies have immediate relevance to the healthcare field, but the specific processes and tasks they support vary widely. Some particular AI technologies of high importance to healthcare include; Machine learning – neural networks and deep learning, Natural language processing, Rule-based expert systems, and Physical robots. Applications of deep learning in healthcare include modeling and representation of complex biomedical data, temporal modeling in data integration and interpretability, and commonly,  the recognition of potentially cancerous lesions in radiology images. Deep learning is increasingly being applied to radiomics or the detection of clinically relevant features in imaging data beyond what can be perceived by the human eye. Both radiomics and deep learning are most commonly found in oncology-oriented image analysis. Their combination appears to promise greater accuracy in diagnosis than the previous generation of automated tools for image analysis, known as computer-aided detection or CAD. (Davenport & Kalakota, 2019)

Take a look at the recent Covid 19 cases, and the use of computational data analysis and machine learning which has an application in AI for infectious disease prevention and surveillance. As we can see the need for these technologies worldwide, we also look at the implications of not having them at all, like during the time of the Black Death, Spanish flu, and the Plague of Justinian, where the use of these technologies could have come to aid but was not feasible due to the fact that it was not just present as at the time. Africa as a whole has always depended on other continents like America or Europe to develop a vaccine, come to aid, and/or treat the illness that they feel only these continents can cure. These technologies have been made no secret nor has it been restricted from being thought in African schools, so there is no reason as to why they should not be adopted by them. Nigeria’s population is more than twice of many nations in Africa with a lot of experts in these techniques, while there is little investment in these technology sectors in Nigeria, there is no development in human to machine interactions to help in more investment by other private tech companies. The physically impaired patients are also neglected in this part of the world and the use of robotics and AI can go a long way in integrating this demography back into the society and also help in building a better economy. Assistive robotics whether wearable or surgically planted will positively impact them and create a nation that can also embrace these technologies, invest in them, and create solutions themselves instead of relying on other technologically advanced nations for every problem faced. These will also extend to the use of medical robots that aid humans in performing successful surgeries, multi-tasking, saving time in performing a particular surgery, and reducing risks of unseen mistakes during surgery. Irrespective of the time at which this technology was invented, statistics have shown that robots are 30% more efficient than humans in completing tasks as it also reduces the workload of other staff within the hospital.  As Covid 19 pandemic hit the world, although Nigeria did not lose a lot of medical personnel as compared to many nations, if robots were built, programmed, and tasked to administer, treat and care for the infected patients in every known isolation center in the world, less medical personnel would have lost their lives as they were also infected, more patients would have been reached and cared for as robot is more efficient than humans in completing repetitive tasks irrespective of the location, time, weather and another known factor that could prevent humans from completing the same task. This begs the need for a human robot interaction, human robot teaming, human to robot trust as it would only help both parties as the case may be.