Artificial Intelligence in Practice

32Elsevier: Using Artificial Intelligence To Improve Medical Decisions And Scientific Research

Elsevier is a global multimedia publishing business that offers more than 20,000 products for educational and professional science and healthcare communities, including leading research publications such as The Lancet and Cell.

Stage one of the company's ongoing digital transformation has involved the digitization of the huge amount of data published in reports and journals during the company's 140-year history.

Now it is building artificial intelligence (AI) tools that will draw new insights from this data, as well as combining it with other big data sources such as anonymized patient data and data from insurance claims.

What Problem Is Artificial Intelligence Helping To Solve?

In the United States, it can often be the case that two patients of the same age and gender will present to their primary healthcare practitioner with the same symptoms, and yet there will be a huge variation in the outcome, and cost, of the treatment they receive.¹

This is because diagnosing and treating are done by different healthcare staff with different levels of knowledge and experience, as well as personal feelings about which treatments are more effective and how to achieve preferred outcomes.

By developing AI-derived “pathways” from initial presentation and examination to treatment procedures and prescribing of medication, patients are more likely to get better quicker, and the cost of providing ...