Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Cardiac Imaging: Harnessing Big Data and Advanced Computing to Provide Personalized Medical Diagnosis and Treatment

Although advances in information technology in the past decade have come in quantum leaps in nearly every aspect of our lives, they seem to be coming at a slower pace in the field of medicine. However, the implementation of electronic health records (EHR) in hospitals is increasing rapidly, accelerated by the meaningful use initiatives associated with the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services EHR Incentive Programs. The transition to electronic medical records and availability of patient data has been associated with increases in the volume and complexity of patient information, as well as an increase in medical alerts, with resulting “alert fatigue” and increased expectations for rapid and accurate diagnosis and treatment. Unfortunately, these increased demands on health care providers create greater risk for diagnostic and therapeutic errors. In the near future, artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning will likely assist physicians with differential diagnosis of disease, treatment options suggestions, and recommendations, and, in the case of medical imaging, with cues in image interpretation. Mining and advanced analysis of “big data” in health care provide the potential not only to perform “in silico” research but also to provide “real time” diagnostic and (potentially) therapeutic recommendations based on empirical data. “On demand” access to high-performance computing and large health care databases will support and sustain our ability to achieve personalized medicine. The IBM Jeopardy! Challenge, which pitted the best all-time human players against the Watson computer, captured the imagination of millions of people across the world and demonstrated the potential to apply AI approaches to a wide variety of subject matter, including medicine. The combination of AI, big data, and massively parallel computing offers the potential to create a revolutionary way of practicing evidence-based, personalized medicine.