Medtronic Joins the AI Race in Healthcare

According to the company, Medtronic, the world’s largest medical device firm, is ramping up its investments in AI and other technologies to assist the healthcare industry is catching up to other sectors. However, unlike many other businesses, health care has been hesitant to adopt the technology.

According to studies, barely 20% of customers trust AI-generated health care recommendations. senior vice president and chief communications officer, Torod Neptune, and Gio Di Napoli, president of Medtronic Gastrointestinal Unit, spoke with VentureBeat about the company’s vision for the future of health care technology.

Neptune discussed Medtronic transition from traditional medical technology to more innovative AI-based solutions. He pointed out that healthcare technology, with its extraordinary scale and ability to leverage data analytics, algorithms, and intelligence, plays a crucial role in solving considerable problems in AI. For example, according to Di Napoli, artificial intelligence improves the identification of early cancer by 14% when compared to traditional colonoscopy. This is critical because “every percent increase in detection reduces the risk of cancer by 2%,” he explained.

Medtronic ambition to make health care more predictive and personal led to the development of the GI Genius Intelligent Endoscopy Module, which builds on the company’s existing medical devices that serve millions of people. According to Medtronic, the GI Genius module is the first and only artificial intelligence system for colonoscopy, supporting doctors in detecting precancerous growths and possibly addressing 19 million colonoscopies every year. According to the company, the module acts as a vigilant second observer, seeing and highlighting the existence of precancerous lesions with a visual marker in real-time, thanks to powerful AI-powered technology.