In a very insightful book, Topol, builds on the key themes from his previous works - In "Creative Destruction..", he had highlighted the digitizing of all information pertaining to our health and in "Patient Will See..", he had provided a roadmap for new service models that are truly patient-centric. Here, he extends those themes even further and posits that AI, correctly applied, will be transformative to healthcare delivery.
That is not necessarily a novel prediction. Numerous authors have highlighted the increasing role of machine-learning/AI in healthcare (and more than a few tech companies have hyped it). Topol acknowledges all that enthusiasm, and using a short set of examples hihglight the value of AI in the first chapter itself. The rest of the book is a systematic expansion of where Topol sees the biggest opportunities in AI are - to the extent he calls it the next industrial revolution.
Topol does an excellent job in differentiating clinicians as those that work with and without patterns - these two chapters highlighting the complexities and skill set required to master a cognitive, integrative process is perhaps the most interesting part of the book. These highlight the key assumptions AI developers should (and shouldn't) make while designing their systems. The discussions on how health systems are approaching AI and ML is interesting, but a reader familiar with the academic literature may brush it off as old news; however, Topol manages to convey the key insights and implications that can be extrapolated to other applications. He also provides an interesting take on the role of AI in nutrition and mental health and then becomes very generous with imagination in his discussion on virtual medical assistant.
Imaginative, informative, and inspiring - but Topol, almost always ignores the question of "who will pay for it" that has dogged the field of mHealth etc for a while. A reader would have benefited from his expanded views on this issue as well. Overall, an excellent read for anyone remotely interested in healthcare or technology and a wonderful thought-starter for any start-up.
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