Artificial intelligence has been in the mainstream media and cultural zeitgeist in the last year or so, particularly around concepts in the tech, business and healthcare world. Arguably, of all the places where artificial intelligence can be placed, healthcare could be the most opportune area.

A recent report from Accenture Consulting predicts the market for health-related AI to grow at a 40% rate through the year 2021 to over $6 billion.

A comprehensive research briefing from last September showed healthcare dominating over every other sector including finance, sales, marketing, security.

The biggest returns on investment for health care will likely come from the substantial deals in terms of startup and deal volume. Two specific areas have been medical imaging and diagnostics and drug discovery in the pharma world.

Robot-assisted surgery integrated from pre-op medical records with real-time operating metrics to physically guide and enhance the physician’s instrument precision to minimize error. The technology can incorporate data from actual surgical experiences to inform new, improved techniques and insights. Another valuable use of artificial intelligence from virtual nursing assistant applications which would save money by letting medical providers remotely assess a patient’s symptoms and lessen the number of unnecessary patient visits.

Lastly, another innovation avenue are intelligent applications for administrative workflow, fraud detection and dosage error reduction.