23/04/2025
Agentic AI (sometimes called AI agents) refers to artificial intelligence systems that are designed to act autonomously and make decisions based on complex algorithms and data analysis – think of it as AI with more independence, capable of proactive actions in a given environment or situation.
In the realm of private healthcare, agentic AI is already being used as a transformative tool that can enhance patient outcomes and support health professionals, hospitals and clinics to improve efficiencies and business operations. Below, we look at just a few of the examples of how agentic AI could improve your competitive advantage.
Personalised treatment plans
Agentic AI systems can analyse vast amounts of patient data, including medical history, genetic information and population health and lifestyle factors to help you develop personalised treatment plans, tailored to the individual needs of your patients. This helps improve the effectiveness of interventions and reduce the likelihood of adverse reactions and side effects.
Predictive analytics
Agentic AI can help identify patterns in patient data that might suggest early onset diseases, which allows for earlier diagnosis of conditions such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Predictive analytics tools allow you to implement preventative measures and treatments that significantly improve patient health.
Virtual health assistants
Agentic AI powered health assistants are already being used to provide patients with 24/7 access to medical advice and support. These assistants can answer simple health related questions, schedule appointments and provide reminders for medication, prescriptions and follow up visits, all of which allows more time to focus on what you do best: delivering the best, human- centred, empathetic care you can.
Enhanced diagnostics
Agentic AI can assist radiologists to interpret diagnostic images such as x-rays, MRIs and CT scans. As this technology gets better, quicker, more accurate, able to get through more images, more scans, and prioritise what clinicians should be looking at first, one can clearly see the benefits to both patients and clinicians. In other diagnostic specialties, we are also seeing huge leaps forward. Earlier this year, a company called Skin Analytics was awarded the EU’s Class III CE marked medical device.
The autonomous skin cancer detection system uses AI without human oversight, and is now approved for clinical decisions in Europe. It is said to have achieved a 99.8% accuracy rate in ruling out cancer, outperforming human dermatologists who typically achieve an accuracy rating of 98.9%.
Back office function and streamlining administrative tasks
As well as the benefits to patients and clinicians, agentic AI is also being used to automate numerous administrative tasks, such as patient record management, workforce rostering, billing and appointment scheduling, allowing hospitals and clinics to streamline operation and reduce inefficiencies.
Conclusion
The application of agentic AI to independent healthcare is wide ranging and can seem daunting. Not only does agentic AI offer enormous opportunity to shape and future-proof independent healthcare, with benefits to patients, hospitals, clinics and the businesses that operate them, but it could also make the practice of private medicine much more satisfying, reducing administrative burden and freeing up health professionals’ time to refocus on the delivery of care which is truly patient centred.
However, there are challenges, including cost, privacy concerns and the challenge of integrating agentic AI into existing healthcare systems, equity and equality of access and what limits we should put on the use of autonomous AI agents.
