MADRID, February 25 (EUROPE PRESS) –
With the goal of learning more and bringing people closer to the benefits of artificial intelligence in medicine and health, the Merck Salud Foundation presented its monograph ‘Artificial Intelligence in the field of Health’ this Thursday. A New Paradigm: Clinical, Ethical and Legal Aspects’, where the applications and improvements that this science brings to patients, professionals and society are discussed by 14 Spanish experts.
In digital format, Fundación Merck Salud, through the hand of its President, Carmen González-Madrid, and five of its leaders – Federico de Montalvo, Jaime del Barrio, Julio Lorca and Jesús García-Foncillas-, has presented this monograph that seeks the interdisciplinary appreciate the nature of AI and its transversality, in addition to the importance of “applying it to move towards a new 5P drug: more preventive, participatory, personalized, predictive and population-based”.
On the ethical problems of artificial intelligence, Federico de Montalvo stressed that “one must think about the usefulness of machines to the extent that they can help humans in their application”. Likewise, De Montalvo has emphasized the Spanish system’s legal tools against AI, emphasizing “the role of the precautionary principle that enables medical and health workers to act in uncertainty and know the risks,” he says.
The second topic discussed in the presentation of the monograph ‘Artificial intelligence in health’ was the complexity of the implementation of AI tools in the national health system. Dr. Jaime del Barrio has been in charge of addressing this issue, highlighting aspects such as the difficulties of Spanish organizations in using AI, the technical risks faced by medicine when using AI or the scarcity of personnel specialized is in this matter, among other things. In this sense, del Barrio has emphasized that the current challenge of the Spanish health system is to create more technological professional profiles.
“We have to fight so that the training of future professionals is even closer to what society needs: more precise and personalized attention, aided by new technologies,” he says. “We are currently undergoing a necessary cultural change, but it must be led by health and medical professionals with the sole aim of improving patient quality,” concluded del Barrio.
Digital health and the post-Covid era are two topics that are making big headlines today. Therefore, the monograph wanted the participation of Dr. Julio Lorca, who in his speech presenting this paper explained the importance of Big Data and its use in medicine “as it can lead us to anticipate diagnoses and perform interventions before many events occur.”, he stated.
This monograph also covers more concrete and specific applications of AI in medicine and health sciences. For example, its use in cancer genomics, in projects such as Pan-Cancer, as well as the benefits it brings to neurology, cancer, and even assisted human reproduction.
To discuss the application and benefits of AI for genomics in precision oncology, the event was attended by Dr. Jesús García-Foncillas, who was responsible for this chapter, together with Dr. Laura del Puerto Nevado, accompanying the new monograph by Fundación Merck Salud. The physician, who specializes in oncology, confirmed “that in this area every tumor is unique and none conforms to a protocol. This is where the AI works to make the personalization of treatments and diagnoses real,” said the physician.