The journal article, “Pediatrics in Artificial Intelligence Era: A Systematic Review on

Challenges, Opportunities, and Explainability” is a systematic review that takes a closer look at

how science and technology have made advances in healthcare, specifically with the use of

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). This article in particular looks at how

AI and ML can have an impact on the pediatric population and the treatment of pediatric disease.

Among the several different subspecialties, the study reviewed the diagnosis process of

PTSD, cancer, metabolic conditions, eye disorders, behavior disorders, and child abuse. AI and

ML have the capabilities of being able to detect anomalies or predict future disease by analyzing

the patient’s current blood levels and neuroimages, for example.

As exciting as the thought of being able to predict myopia in a child by analyzing his/her

refractive data is, there are still challenges that prevent the AI and ML models from taking the

place of a human. Incorporating AI into clinical practice, while encouraging, still faces

challenges regarding safety, accuracy, algorithmic biases, data biases, instability, and irregular

interpretability. Until a solution is introduced that might address and resolve these issues, it

would not be ethically responsible to bring AI and ML into regular healthcare practice.

Because patient data is not usually collected at regular intervals, and that the density of

patient records varies, it is easy to have irregular samples available for testing. There must be

diversity in the data that is used to train AI/ML models also. The lack of standardization in the

collected data makes it difficult to diagnose syndromic conditions effectively. The AI and ML

algorithms also contain an inherent risk of bias, especially if they are trained on biased data. If a

certain standard is not met regarding the collection of data, the accuracy of AI and ML

algorithms can be compromised.

 In addition to these challenges, the AI and ML models would have to be constantly

updated to coincide with children’s every-changing behavior. If the AI and ML models were to

reinforce biased data, there is a risk that the children could be treated unfairly.

There are ethical challenges that arise when using AI and ML models in healthcare.

Specifically with patient privacy and security. A way for providers to protect patient data so to

ensure that only the medical information contained within that data would have to be developed.

So, all of the above challenges, along with many others, would have to resolved before AI and

ML is able to be used in the clinical setting on a regular basis.

Despite the challenges, AI and ML have proved to be useful in some areas, such as

analyzing data to predict patient deterioration. With the use of these predictions, clinicians would

be able to respond in a much timelier fashion should a life-threatening condition develop. AI will

be able to assist in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of a disease in a collaborative effort

with the physicians and nurses. It is important to remember though that there are still limitations

present that need to be resolved, and the AI and ML models should not be used in place of

human judgment and expertise in healthcare.