How AI could help in the fight against COVID-19 Posted on : Mar 30 - 2020

From developing drug treatments to predicting the next hotspot, artificial intelligence may help researchers, healthcare workers, and everyday people offset the impact of the coronavirus.

As the worldwide fight against coronavirus COVID-19 continues, companies and governments around the world are pulling out all the stops in an effort to stave off the pandemic's worst impacts. One tool in that toolbox that might prove particularly useful is artificial intelligence (AI). Even though AI has been around since the 1960s, it's only been in the past few years that its adoption outside of science labs and research institutions has really taken off.

Chatbots, RPA, and telemedicine

Perhaps the most common application of AI people have come into contact with today are virtual assistants like Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa, which rely on natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to understand human speech.

This ability could prove particularly useful in relieving the administrative burden on over-stretched and under-resourced healthcare staff by deploying AI-based chatbots to prescreen patients for COVID-19 symptoms, said Tanya Berger-Wolf, director of the Translational Data Analytics Institute at The Ohio State University (OSU). These screenings could be done onsite or remotely via telemedicine for isolated populations or for at-risk individuals who do not want to, or cannot, leave their homes.

Suki, an AI-based, voice-enabled digital clinical assistant startup that helps doctors create medical notes and do other things like retrieve patient information, has re-engineered its offering with COVID-19-specific templates to speed up the note-taking process. The startup is also looking at deploying its technology for use in telemedicine, an area of technology that is taking off right now.

Robotic process automation (RPA), a form of AI that can handle complex routine tasks, could then be deployed to do things like process all of the clinical and insurance forms that a healthcare facility would need to move the patient-evaluation process forward, said Berger-Wolf.

"The use of natural language processing is going to be critical," she said.

Predicting COVID-19 hotspots and how to respond

Another area where AI can be useful is in predicting future events. OSU's public health department is working on an AI algorithm that uses "what-if" scenarios, like applying different dates for lifting stay-at-home orders, to figure out when COVID-19 will crest in Columbus, OH, where OSU's main campus is located.

"What comes out of that is a much more accurate focus forecast," said Berger-Wolf. "If we start easing them, what will happen? We can start modeling it. And the more data we have, the better we can model it. We can start understanding the correlational relationship between the type of person and the circumstances of their life, for example, and then the outcome of infection." View More