From January 28 to 30, the ICT&health World Conference 2025 will take place. The MECC in Maastricht will be packed with domestic and foreign policymakers, administrators, healthcare professionals, IT experts, program managers, investors, visionaries and innovators. In the run-up to the congress, the editorial board members of ICT&health will talk about current healthcare issues that will be highlighted during the congress. Chairman of the editorial board Diederik Gommers kicks off and touches on the social debate surrounding the opportunities for artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare.
“One of the biggest current challenges in healthcare is the staff shortage,” Gommers also notes this in his department. "We see waiting lists for surgeries increasing. Despite healthcare providers trying incredibly hard, people must wait longer and longer for surgery or admission. Due to the high pressure and high absenteeism of staff, surgeries and admissions have to be cancelled regularly. The number of staff actually is just not enough, and we have to struggle every day to keep scheduled surgeries going."
Artificial intelligence
All eyes seem to be on AI. The hope is that AI can help reduce the workload. "The staff shortage problem has to be solved, but there is also just not enough staff available in the next few years. So, we also need to look at alternative strategies. Lately, there has been a lot of attention from the healthcare industry and politicians on the applications of AI in healthcare. Through AI, some of the administrative tasks of healthcare providers can be taken over, the workload can hopefully be relieved."
This is necessary and plausible. "When I'm on ward duty, I spend the first two hours at the computer typing in status, and in the process I transcribe a lot of data when it's already in the record but not in the right place. I would rather spend that time with patients. We also spend time making reports after family meetings, and nurses also must make a report after each shift with data already in the computer. How nice it would be if this was automated. Conversations with family or a patient simply recorded with a phone, then a structured report is automatically produced by an LLM application, speech-to-text programs. That reduces the administrative burden of the doctors and nurses AND gives the opportunity to print out the report directly to patient or family and give it to them to read again at home."
Not a universal solution
AI is not the solution, Gommers emphasizes. "In the discussion surrounding AI in healthcare, you notice that AI is sometimes presented as a universal solution. But there is no one solution. And AI doesn't have to solve everything either. Hopefully AI can reduce administration, but also, we can start using it for prediction and support about outcomes, allowing us to better inform patients and families before admission to the ICU. It's not just about survival but more importantly quality of life after intensive ICU treatment. With this, you can reduce the care burden and increase the job satisfaction of caregivers. And then it also makes the healthcare professions attractive again to young entrants."
ICT&health World Conference
Care providers run into the same problems every day, but real solutions sometimes seem far away. “That is why the ICT&health World Conference is so important,” says Gommers. "Everyone in healthcare looks at these problems from his or her own perspective. But if we want to reach solutions, we will really have to work together with people from different backgrounds. After all, patients follow an entire care path through the various healthcare systems. Those sectors all experience problems, from primary care to nursing homes and home care. At the conference, you meet all kinds of people, which allows you to shrug together to address the problems at hand and arrive at solutions together."
"There is a lot of complaining about the staffing problems in healthcare, which puts us in a negative spiral. But there are also many opportunities. Although it will not be the solution to all our problems, AI applications offer many opportunities in healthcare. I am very positive, and it can really help us move forward. The ICT&health World Conference offers healthcare providers and other stakeholders the opportunity to meet and share best practices."
