How AI Can Remedy Racial Disparities In Healthcare?

The story of American medicine is one of incredible scientific advancements, from the use of penicillin to treat syphilis and other bacterial infections to the countless biomedical breakthroughs made possible by cell-line research. 

• Early experiments using artificial intelligence have shown some success in replacing or supplementing the physician’s judgment (and implicit biases) when diagnosing a patient’s pain or medical needs.
• And, sure enough, when the researchers went back and re-ranked patients by their illnesses (rather than the cost of their care), the percentage of Black patients who should have been enrolled in specialized care programs jumped from 18% to 47%.
• With universities and funding agencies increasingly focused on racial issues in medicine, this expectation has the potential to become routine in the future.
• As a result, this form of racism can’t be resolved by modifying the behavior of individual doctors.