COVID-19 has led to an unprecedented acceleration of digital transformation across the healthcare industry. Medical device companies have had to rapidly adopt emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) to fight the pandemic. AI has been particularly disrupting the cardiology medical device sector. From the list of AI-enabled medical devices that have been approved by the FDA in 2022, approximately 57% of these devices fall under cardiology, finds GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
GlobalData’s research reveals that the trend is expected to continue in the future, creating multiple opportunities for the medical device industry. Against this backdrop, the spending on AI by medical device companies is set to witness a CAGR of 20.6% between 2019 and 2024, forecasts GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
Joselia Carlos, Medical Device Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “AI has certainly become quite the buzzword in cardiology subspecialities like electrophysiology and vascular medicine. One developing area where researchers are interested in incorporating AI is using AI to predict heart attacks in patients before they happen.”
According to the World Health Organization, cardiovascular diseases are the world’s leading cause of death—approximately 17.9 million people die of cardiovascular diseases every year. In the US, someone experiences a heart attack every 40 seconds. However, AI allows physicians to analyze large amounts of patient data to determine who is at risk of a heart attack and when it could potentially happen.
Carlos continues: “One-way physicians can use AI to predict heart attacks is training AI algorithms to analyze medical images and identify patterns and signs of heart disease. An example of this tool is Cedars-Sinai’s AI-enabled tool that analyzes coronary computed tomography angiography 3D images of the heart and arteries to study plaque accumulation in the arteries. By studying plaque build-up patterns using AI, physicians can better assess one’s likelihood of experiencing a heart attack in the future.”
GlobalData forecasts that healthcare providers will be spending the most on AI platforms in 2024, at approximately $2.9 billion.
Carlos concludes: “AI’s abilities in replacing notable professions, especially healthcare professionals such as doctors, has always been a controversial topic. However, when it comes to providing healthcare services, AI is not capable of developing that special trust bond between doctors and patients. If anything, doctors can use AI merely as a guiding tool, allowing them to focus more on developing their relationship with their patients and treating them.”
