Five examples of AI in healthcare and how this collaboration will grow more important in the coming years

The healthcare industry is undergoing a tumultuous period of change where it’s being forced to evolve in the face of rapidly growing consumer demand.

With an increasing global average lifespan, rising healthcare demands have pushed modern hospitals and healthcare providers to their limits and forced to call upon any tool that can help them provide positive patient outcomes.

Over the past few years, it’s become obvious that AI has become nearly unrivalled in its ability to help hospitals and medical experts heal patients while cutting costs.

Here are five powerful examples of AI in healthcare, and why this technology will only grow more important in the forthcoming years.

1. Flagler Hospital is using AI to create health-enhancing Clinical Pathways

For those who doubt the ability of hospitals around the nation to innovate and make use of AI, look no further than Flagler Hospital, where healthcare professionals have harnessed the power of intelligent machines to create care-enhancing clinical pathways.

They have also drastically cut the costs of providing healthcare. The Saint Augustine, Florida-based hospital has decided to use AI to help improve the treatment of pneumonia, sepsis, and other high-cost conditions to wondrous effects.

The AI program analyzes clinical pathways for patients with high-cost conditions and recommends the most efficient option for doctors; it’s already expected to save at least US$1,356.35 per pneumonia patient.

As hospitals become swamped with more and more patients, they’ll find it necessary to follow in the footsteps of Flagler Hospital and employ AI programs that help them deal with high-cost conditions.

Ultimately, expediting the treatment process and saving hospitals money could be the most impactful way that AI comes to change the future of the healthcare industry.

2. Machine learning is supercharging the medical diagnostics process

Medical diagnostics are about to get a lot easier than ever before thanks to the help of machine learning applications, which are supercharging the ability of healthcare professionals to comb through huge reams of patient data in pursuit of crucial insights that could mean the difference between a healthy patient and a suffering one.

According to the Institute of Medicine at the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, diagnostic errors contribute to approximately 10 per cent of all patient deaths. This means that any innovation to help make the diagnostics process more efficient is sorely needed in the modern healthcare system.

Hospitals can use AI for a wide range of purposes when it comes to diagnostics; chatbots, for instance, can have friendly conversations with patients over the phone or computer before they actually head into a hospital, and thereby prevent any hospital errors later on.

This will cut down the number of people who needlessly head into the ER when they’re only suffering from a minor condition, and chatbots could also help lure in patients who are otherwise untrusting of doctors and medical experts.

3. AI is making analysing patient records easier

Combing through a huge sum of patient data is never easy, as any medical professional can attest to. In the future, this process could be greatly expedited by injecting AI into the works, as a number of healthcare providers are already finding machine learning techniques useful when it comes to analyzing patient records.

A recent research report demonstrates that systems like IBM’s Watson can be used to screen literally millions of patient records for clues to identify who may be at a higher risk for cancer.

More hospitals and medical researchers will doubtlessly come to view the application of machine learning to patient records as an essential part of digitising their operations and moving headfirst into the 21st-century healthcare environment.

4. Medical image interpretation is about to get better

Interpreting medical images, x-rays, and scans aren’t easy, yet it’s a crucial part of monitoring patient health and ensuring that diseases are detected early on.

As another recent research paper on AI and its application into various areas uncovered, images of brain tumours can be analysed by machine learning programs that learn to recognise common trends and can recommend useful insights to researchers.

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The future of medical image interpretation is going to become dominated by intelligent machines – human workers in this area can legitimately fear automation, as software is likely to prove much more efficient at image analysis and pattern recognition than the human brain.

5. Robots are becoming surgery assistants

Perhaps the starkest example of AI in healthcare is how robots are slowly but steadily becoming surgery assistants. While some healthcare professionals dismissed the idea of AI being useful in the operating room, a number of medical procedures have already been conducted with AI-assisted robotics playing a key role in the process.

The New York Post has already reported on one of the world’s earliest examples of micro-surgery conducted with the assistance of AI, and these instances are only likely to become more common as the tech becomes cheaper and more widely accessible in the medical industry.

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The e-scooter startup plans to expand regionally, starting with local presence in Singapore

Lime, the mobility service startup that provides e-scooter for an easier commute, announced a new headquarter set up in Singapore that will be officially opened in the third quarter of this year. The new headquarter will be the hub of its Asia Pacific operation, as reported by The Straits Time.

Lime chose the Republic as its strategic location due to its “strong potential for growth” and high existing adoption rate of personal mobility devices.

Lime said it plans to expand local capabilities by including government relations, partnerships, brand, and operations from its central business district-located hub.

Lime is following its electric scooters pilot with Ascendas-Singbridge group back in November 2018. The pilot then continued with an investment in in-house research and development for new e-scooter models which it said: “meet local safety and usage needs”.

“The country’s strengths in terms of infrastructure readiness, macroeconomic status coupled with the presence of progressive government support and regulation made this decision an easy and natural one,” said Ashwin Purushottam, Lime’s general manager for Singapore.

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Lime said it also has collaborated with various stakeholders to promote a sustainable and responsible riding culture throughout the city to kickstart its expansion.

“This development will help set the groundwork for the firm’s Asia-Pacific expansion as it is geographically well-positioned as a communications touchpoint to support and connect the firm’s regional offices,” said Anthony Fleo, Lime’s regional general manager of APAC.

The American company currently operates in more than 100 cities across at least 20 countries, with over 10 million sign-ups on its app and over 34 million rides taken.
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Aiming to launch with a “perfect” version of your product is a blatant waste of time

I’m the co-founder of The Kint Story, an online platform dedicated to rebranding second-hand clothing so that they’re no longer seen as second best.

Currently, we are in a pre-accelerator programme, The Start, run by the organizers behind Startup Weekend. This 12-week long programme commenced in January this year.

Here’s what I learnt so far.

Being in The Start has rapidly accelerated our learning and progress. Even though both my co-founder Elisa, and I have worked in several startups and were also part of National University of Singapore’s Overseas Colleges (New York), this is the first time we are running a business of our own. From this programme, we’ve managed to get help in many areas.

For one, The Start provides us with mentors that are relevant to our business, and are able to give us valuable advice. Many times we commit mistakes that these successful entrepreneurs have made earlier on in their own journeys and being able to get advice from them helps to steer us back to the right path.

1. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. People want to help you.

There is no need to shy away from asking for help because you’re afraid that you might appear inadequate. The journey of every entrepreneur is never smooth sailing. There are so many entrepreneurs out there who have been through your struggles and are more than willing to advise you because they fully understand the situation that you are in.

Also Read: Space sustainability company Astroscale receives US$30M funding, expands to US

2. Your product does not have to be perfect when you launch.

Aiming to launch into the market with a “perfect” version of your product is a waste of your time.

When we first joined The Start, we had set a goal of launching with this ideal version of our website. It was only after our consultation with the mentors that made us realise that what we already had was good enough. After all, the first version of your product will rarely hit the nail on the head.

Your product will always have to go through several rounds of reiteration based on the feedback you get from your consumers because what they want will often be vastly different from what you had hypothesized. Instead, launch your product with the core features that you want to test out and work things out from there.

3. Listen to advice, but always remember what you stand for.

Everyone that you speak to will perceive your business differently because they come from different industries and are shaped by their own experiences. Being in The Start has given us the opportunity to speak to so many outstanding mentors, and each of them had varying views on our business.

What we’ve learnt is to take all these advice with an open mind, but to also always remember what we started The Kint Story for and the vision that we have, which is to reduce textile wastage.

4. All the resources you need are already out there waiting for you.

It is very easy to feel like the problem you are facing in your business has no solution. That is absolutely not the case. Being exposed to entrepreneurs working on different businesses has taught us to creatively implement solutions from other fields to our business.

Also Read: E-scooter company Lime to enter APAC region with Singapore headquarter

Therefore, do not limit yourself to the industry you are working in, instead, speak to the people around you because you never know what you might discover. If you are in need of money, there are many grants out there that you can apply for, you just have to be proactive in searching for them. This also ties back to our first point- do not be afraid to ask for help.

5. Always remember to have fun.

We received this valuable piece of advice from one of our mentors at The Start. He said, “Always remember to have fun because when you enjoy what you’re doing, your customers will be able to tell.” This really resonated with us.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you have to stick to only one way of doing things when what you did manage to strike a chord with your consumers. But doing things repetitively will not make your business mundane for you, but for your customers as well.

I think — especially when you’re still a young startup — it is a great time to be experimenting and introducing features that you yourself are excited about because you never know what might be the next big thing for your business.

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About The Start’s Pre-Accelerator Demo Day

15 April 2019, at Developer Space @ Google Singapore. This is the day when we will be showing potential investors and partners what we have worked on over the past 12 weeks in this programme.

RSVP now here.

About the Kint
We devote a lot of effort to changing the negative perception towards preloved clothing, by recreating the first-hand experience you get when you shop for brand new clothing. Each piece of clothing you see on our website has been carefully curated, washed, modelled for, and will be delivered to your doorstep after you make a purchase.

Visit us here, and follow us on Instagram!

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e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

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Tik Tok is not as sticky as it seems, but more important, Bytedance isn’t going all-in

Let us begin this article with an anecdote. A quick survey of the young employees at e27, my teenage cousin, and my friend’s kid all resulted in the same word when asked about Tik Tok.

“It’s so cringe-worthy.”

This is true, but it is also part of the charm of the app. It is a place to enjoy watching people making fools of themselves and being rewarded for giving up their ‘cool’. As everyone eventually figures out at some point in their mid-20s, being cool is a gigantic waste of time and energy. In life, it is far better to be Phil Dunphy than Michael Bluth.

The earnest sweetness has helped the company cross 500 million users. It has clearly become the next ‘best bet’ social media startup to dethrone Facebook — and, more importantly, its incredibly valuable Instagram property.

Instagram is twice the size of Tik Tok (it claims over one billion monthly active users), but 500 million people on Tik Tok is enough to strike fear into the heart of Zuckerberg.

Plus, it has the much desired demographics. Two-thirds of the platform is used by people under the age of 30; it may be the most successful Chinese startup in the US and it is seeing huge growth in India. So, theoretically, it could control huge user numbers from the world’s three biggest countries by population.

Also Read: Warung Pintar CEO: How my grandmother inspired our vision for Indonesian mom-and-pop shops

Tik Tok grew by over 400 per cent between 2017 and 2018 and is now a mainstream app. The question is, will this explosion continue? Or, are we approaching the ceiling whereby user growth will flatten a la Snapchat and Twitter?

Unfortunately (there, my rooting interests have been revealed), I think we are reaching the ceiling. Tik Tok does not represent a true threat to Instagram and the reason is fairly simple:

The product is not conducive for content creation and Bytedance will not go all-in on challenging Facebook.

Creating content

Instagram attracts so many users thanks largely to the dramatic increase in smartphone camera quality. For most people, it is very easy to grab a picture in 30 seconds, throw it through some filters or third party apps and publish a photo of reasonable quality.

Instagram Stories is even easier. Just lift up the camera, pretend life is awesome, ad a poll or gif and voila! You are now Instafamous.

Tik Tok is an entirely different beast.

While it has the same ‘pretty people’ advantage as any social network, Tik Tok also has a significantly higher barrier to entry for content creators. Currently, my feed includes teenagers jumping off their balcony onto a beanbag chair, acrobats doing front-flips over their cars, and a time lapse of a fantastic piece of artwork.

This videos are all fantastic, but they require A LOT of effort. Not minutes, but hours. If we include transitions, music, editing, costumes, make-up, dancing, and trends, the platform becomes intimidating for new users.

It is fun to scroll through these videos for a half-hour every now and then, but it eventually becomes repetitive and loses its stickiness after awhile.

Statistically, only 29 per cent of users open the app once per month. A data point that backs up the eye test.

Instagram works because, after the inevitability of getting bored with the lives of others, the next step is to bore others with your life. Then, visiting the app is more about checking up on how the latest post performed.

Tik Tok has similar qualities, but again, it takes at least an hour to create a video that has any chance of getting traction. More likely, it becomes a half-day project. That is a lot of effort to put into a few likes.

Then, to circle back around, there is the cringe-worthiness of it all. It is pleasant to watch someone pretend they can get a boyfriend by turning on the faucet and then flicking their bathroom lights on and off. It is an entirely different proposition to convince the average person to do this themselves.

Fly in the ointment

Recently, in the US, something has happened that does significant damage to this argument. It is called “Old Town Road”, a song by Lil Nas X that has absolutely exploded and will certainly be the most hated song in the country by the end of 2019.

It also was made popular almost entirely through Tik Tok, a platfrom Lil Nas X told The Verge he was quite familiar with.

Lil Nas X uploaded the song for free on Tik Tok, so technically he gets zero dollars out of the song’s virality. However, the song became so popular it began to leak beyond Tik Tok, where it eventually gained the attention of mainstream channels and is now, easily, the most popular song in America.

Is this the future of Tik Tok? Is it the next YouTube? Which is more of a platform that creates stars rather than one where already-stars connect with fans.

Maybe Tik Tok is the place where nobodies can launch America’s ‘Hit of the Summer’.

Also Read: [Updated] Carousell raises US$56 million at valuation of US$550 million

Tik Tok seems to think so, as the South China Morning Post reported today, the company is working to launch a Spotify-type of service. While this is a more logical step than its Lark product (which I will discuss below), it points to a major issue for Tik Tok’s ability to compete with Instagram:

Bytedance does not appear to want to go all-in.

Focus, focus, focus

Bytedance is using its newfound success as an opportunity to expand into all sorts of verticals, and in doing so risks becoming a Master of None.

This month, the company launched Lark, a Slack-like productivity tool. As mentioned above, it appears a Spotify service in on the way.

It is attacking an entirely different user, and in doing so will need to shift resources away from Tik Tok.

Imagine if Slack decided to launch a social media platform? They would be pilloried by investors, the media, and their users. For some reason, Bytedance has largely avoided criticisms for its decision to launch Lark.

The company has found itself in a position to compete with the global giants Facebook, Snap Inc., and Twitter. Now it wants simultaneously build a product to compete with Google, Slack, and Apple?

At this point, Bytedance should just launch a food delivery service like the rest of the tech ecosystem.

As more and more stories come out asking if Tik Tok will replace Instagram, remind yourself that it will not. Here are the simple reasons.

1. Tik Tok is not sticky – only 29 per cent of users open the app once per month
2. Tik Tok is hard for newbies to build a following
3. Bytedance has not gone all in on Tik-Tok

Tik Tok may very well replace Snapchat, but Instagram? No way.

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Singapore-based VC PSA unboXed signs an agreement with Israeli company theDOCK Innovation Hub, seeking to benefit port, maritime, and supply chain sector

Singapore-based VC arm of PSA International, PSA unboXed, has entered into an agreement with Israel-based startup theDOCK Innovation Hub, global ports, shipping, and maritime logistics hub, that will see both parties leveraging technologies to benefit the port, maritime, and supply chain sector.

The agreement notes that theDOCK will facilitate for PSA unboXed in scouting, screening, and investing in promising startups that focus on providing solutions addressing specific challenges cited by PSA.

The partnership itself will be marked with a first-ever maritime tech Hackathon in Israel, dedicated to a list of challenges which reflect the digital transformation needs in the port and shipping sector.

The call for applications for the Hackathon will be published in the coming weeks and the event itself will take place in June 2019.

“We are excited by the prospects of engaging creative ideation and solution providers to tackle the transformation of this sector. The specific interest will cover areas such as ports and its adjacent spaces including maritime, logistics, supply chain, and all that is associated with containerized cargo flow,” said Nir Gartzman, Co-Founder and COO at theDOCK.

Also Read: Space sustainability company Astroscale receives US$30M funding, expands to US

theDOCK connects creative startups with worldwide maritime corporations by matching its technology solutions with the challenges and needs of its corporate partners.

“We believe that this strategic partnership with theDOCK will help PSA benefit from Israel’s innovation ecosystem, and improve the dynamism of the industry as we strive to become the go-to partner in the startup ecosystem for ideation, co-creation, and validation of technology and solutions for the port, maritime, and supply chain spaces,” said Elton Fong, Vice President of PSA unboXed.

Aside from PSA unboXed, theDOCK’s partners include Wartsila, Lloyd’s Register, Kirby Corporation, DSV, Maersk, Cargotec, and others.
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