Artificial Intelligence in Comprehensive Health Examinations

Abstract

 The comprehensive health checkup system is a unique system that supports excellent health status in our country. By conducting large-scale and regular screening tests on an apparently healthy population, the system detects many diseases while asymptomatic and enables early initiation of interventions for prevention and treatment. However, since most of the target population is healthy, some unique problems arise due to the extremely low prevalence of diseases. Even with highly accurate tests, the number of false positives can be significant. Artificial intelligence can automate tasks currently performed by humans and build systems that detect diseases directly from tests, enabling an expansion of the information that can be handled in health checkups and significantly improving the accuracy of tests. This not only reduces the oversight of diseases but also reduces unnecessary secondary tests, cutting medical costs and minimizing unnecessary bodily invasion and radiation exposure. Moreover, machines can perform the same calculations repeatedly without fatigue, making them ideal for large-scale population targets like health checkups.

 While AI is extremely useful, the concerns in public discourse that it will 'steal doctors' jobs' are unlikely to occur any time soon. It is merely akin to obtaining superior test results, and it cannot substitute for the critical work of physicians, such as interpreting results or making subsequent step decisions based on patient values. Physicians, are required to properly understand the strengths and weaknesses of AI and to use it skillfully.