Technology

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in health care is gaining significant attention and interest. AI is revolutionizing how providers diagnose, treat, and care for patients, but how did we get here? The origins of AI in health care and its development are essential to understanding its applications today. Knowledge of key advancements in AI and what the future holds for its use in wound care is vital to consider for any level of integration into one’s practice.

Although the potential benefits of AI in health care have been widely theorized, the practical and ethical concerns have been less well-characterized. Discussed below are important considerations involving patient privacy (ie, HIPAA concerns) as well as the ethical use of AI in daily clinical practice.

Pain is an important factor when performing wound care procedures, especially dressing changes, which account for moderate to severe pain in 74% of wound care patients. Traditional pain management methods commonly employed, such as opioids, may not always produce a desirable result or be effective due to potential side effects, addiction risk, and delayed wound healing.

In this interview, Kyle Wu, MBA, MD and Ozgur Guler, PhD discuss the ways AI can help providers educate themselves, such as through large language models and gamification.

In this interview, Nancy Morgan, RN, BSN, MBA, WOC, reviews several artificial intelligence (AI) modalities that can augment wound and health care, assuage provider's fears of adopting these new technologies, and some considerations for integrating these technologies in one's practice.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): An umbrella term for technology that can simulate human intelligence. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN): Inspired by biological neural networks, these frameworks have only a few layers but can create outputs with less human intervention than traditional ML algorithms. Augmented Intelligence (AuI): AI that aids in human decision-making rather than replacing it.