By Mackenzie Garrity, Becker’s Hospital Review | March 30, 2019

Spending on artificial intelligence-related tools is expected to exceed $8 billion annually across seven healthcare areas by 2022, according to the Boston Consulting Group.

Below are the seven areas AI will play a significant role in:

1. Remote prevention and care: Virtual physicians are among the AI tools being implemented to treat patients outside  hospitals. Wearables and other trigger-alerting devices are being introduced to patients to track health data. These devices all use forms of AI.

2. Diagnostics support: Physicians can use AI to improve medical imaging and other clinical tests. The technology can help physicians identify conditions and diseases, such as breast cancer, brain injuries and heart disease. The consulting group estimates healthcare companies will spend around $1.2 billion annually by 2022 on AI-related diagnostic support to reduce costs.

3. Treatment pathways and support: Through AI tools, physicians can more easily create individual treatment plans, eliminating potential errors. By developing correct treatment plans, physicians can lower complication risks and improve outcomes while cutting costs.

4. Drug discovery and development: Total spending on AI-related drug discovery and development applications is predicted to reach $1.3 billion by 2022. Currently, biopharma companies are spending big portions of their budgets on research and development. With AI, these companies can better identify and develop promising drugs.

5. Operations: Between natural language processing and automated writing, AI tools can reduce the time physicians spend on paperwork. These tools also can be used with biopharma and medtech companies to streamline operations, including global supply chain.

6. Marketing and sales: AI tools can allow healthcare companies to identify providers more likely to be receptive to their products.

7. Support functions: Other AI tools beginning to the merge include computer vision, voice recognition and neuro-linguistic programming. These functions are becoming automated. For example, chatbots are more commonly being used to answer patient questions about billing or passwords.