Research pick: Your life out of their hands - "Big data, artificial intelligence and epidemic disasters. A primary structured literature review"

“Big data” and “artificial intelligence” are two perhaps two of the most frequently used phrases in the search for technological solutions to human problems. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tools and techniques have been applied widely and bring with them pros and cons. A literature review in the International Journal of Applied Decision Sciences has looked at exactly what role smart technologies can play in medicine faced with a global epidemic disaster.

The primary structured literature review by Rosa Lombardi of Sapienza University of Rome, Raffaele Trequattrini and Benedetta Cuozzo of the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, and Alberto Manzari of the University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy, stretch their review of smart technologies and epidemics back through two decades, well before the current pandemic.

“The role of smart technologies and particularly big data and artificial intelligence is useful in tracking, preventing and managing the emergency by organisations, institutions and policymakers,” the team writes. However, they add that the decision-making processes taken out of the hands of healthcare workers may well come at a price. The automation of medical decisions might remove the doctor’s primary role and without the appropriate checks and balances could lead to misdiagnosis of patients and inappropriate prescribing.

There is thus a pressing need, as we come to rely more and more on big data and artificial intelligence, to put in place safeguards for public health, economical systems, and societal wealth. The basic purpose of these safeguards would be to protect patients, they would ensure medical integrity, privacy, and security, but also extend to protect healthcare workers themselves and to preclude the errant application of results from smart technologies that would be detrimental. Also, the safeguards would help to ensure that money and resources are not wasted on smart technologies when human intervention would be the most appropriate option at any decision point in the healthcare process.

Lombardi, R., Trequattrini, R., Cuozzo, B. and Manzari, A. (2022) ‘Big data, artificial intelligence and epidemic disasters. A primary structured literature review’, Int. J. Applied Decision Sciences, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp.156–180.