JOHANNESBURG, 30 November 2024 – The South African Medical Association (SAMA) is leading the discussion around harnessing the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and technology in bridging the access gap in healthcare for millions of underserved South Africans.
In a two-day pioneering event titled “Roundtable on AI for the Health of the Nation” held at Huawei Business Park, Johannesburg, SAMA brought together healthcare professionals, policymakers and technology leaders, to chart a practical and inclusive path for AI in healthcare
Innovation Needs to be embraced
“Doctors must be at the heart of AI innovation – from critical care units to remote patient monitoring systems. With robust clinical leadership, we can build practical, ethical, and inclusive strategies that leverage AI to deliver better healthcare outcomes for all South Africans,” says SAMA Chairperson, Dr Mvuyisi Mzukwa.
The roundtable hosted by SAMA provided key stakeholders, including healthcare professionals, AI experts, policymakers and academics, with a platform to discuss the potential, challenges, and ethical considerations of implementing AI in the South African healthcare system.
“As the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation we have set in place a 10-year strategy for the broader scientific sector that covers the decade from 2022 – 2032,” says Prof. Blade Nzimande, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation. “The strategy coincides with the United Nations’ Strategic Development Goals and South Africa’s National Development Plan”.
Technology and AI Revolution in Healthcare Already Here
AI has already demonstrated its potential as a game-changer for medicine and medical practice, globally, thus enabling early diagnosis of diseases, optimised resource allocation, and improved public health surveillance. However, scaling these innovations across diverse contexts – through robust data infrastructure (cloud, data centres and Edge technology) and physical connectivity (network and devices) – particularly in rural areas, requires responsible and ethical implementation that supports overall wellness and sustainable development.
Professor Rubin Pillay pointed out how many new technologies already exist that can cut the huge costs involved with Diagnostics to a small percent of what procedures currently cost. The Pill-Cam was one example that provides for a non envasive Gastro screening procedure that costs a fraction of a endoscopy proceedure and provides for greter accuracy and very clear images of hard to screen areas such as the small intestine, and can be used easily in even remote areas without the need for a doctor to be present.
“Platform based healthcare is delivering care at marginal costs” Pillay stated.
The Number one problem that we have in healthcare today is that we don’t know what it costs, says Pillay, “we need to adopt technology and AI that makes treatment and diagnosis affordable for all”.
Proactive “Wellcare” is the New Pivot
Waiting periods for treatment are a major issue as there are insufficient resources to properly address the volume of patients, and often by the time a diagnosis is made it is simply too late to effect treatment .
Several of the speakers addressed the need to pivot to “Wellcare” and away from treatment after illness has been found. The concept of Wellcare focusses on a preventative approach and even with diseases such as cancer that can now be approached from a preventative perspective with technology such as with Pollyome, the world’s first preventative approach to cancer, rather than with treatment after the fact where often it is too late to treat effectively.
Unlike many other regions of the world, the majority of Africa’s population still live in sparsely populated areas, where vast distances often separate impoverished communities from essential services. Between 2000 and 2023, Africa’s rural population grew from around 531 million to over 802 million. In order to improve access to healthcare for even the most vulnerable communities, technology developers need to ensure that healthcare providers are at the core of developing the algorithms and machine learning systems.
People Centred Healthcare Key
AI, driven by masses of health and healthcare data, provides the opportunity to organise more effective healthcare procedures and processes and and AI assisted programs can short circuit the severe skilled staff shortages in the healthcare industry and cut operational costs and wait times for diagnostics dramatically.
the current medical training facilities in Africa are locked into a set number of skilled people it can produce each year without the ability to scale this. So as the population grows the shortages of skilled personnel in healthcare will simply keep exploding unless there is a new approach, and AI tech can fill this gap and redirect resources where they can be most effective
South Africa faces significant healthcare challenges, including a high burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, staff shortages, and infrastructure gaps. Unfortunately, vulnerable communities, particularly in rural and underserved areas, suffer the most.
Dr Mzukwa commented on the outcomes of the roundtable: “The valuable insights gathered from the sessions and the real-world experience of healthcare providers, including the heartbreaking consequences of systemic and logistical barriers on the poor, should be thoroughly and carefully integrated into the tools and platforms that shape more efficient delivery mechanisms”.
“With doctors at the core of the development of smart healthcare solutions like artificial intelligence critical care units (AICU) and remote monitoring of patients, we can draw from robust clinical leadership to help shape practical, ethical and inclusive strategies for the integration AI into our healthcare system”, he adds.
