Page 78 - Petelin, Ana. 2024. Ed. Zdravje delovno aktivnih in starejših odraslih | Health of the Working-Age and Older Adults. Zbornik prispevkov z recenzijo | Proceedings. Koper: University of Primorska Press

virtual healthcare assistant, providing patients with relevant information
about their condition and thereby improving their engagement in their
treatment plan. AI can also aid in the development of more effective
drugs with fewer side effects. The use of modern information technology
is also defined by telemedicine applications, which include remote
healthcare consultations, diagnostics, and treatment. Advantages include
integrated patient care regardless of their physical location, availability
of patient data for expert consultations, and the possibility of remote
notification of changes in health status in chronic diseases. AI can also
simplify administrative tasks in healthcare institutions, and in this way
contribute to speed, efficiency, and cost reduction, resulting in overall
financial benefits to the healthcare system. Priorities to be addressed in
the future include education, research and exploiting the potential of AI
at all levels of study in healthcare, and creating opportunities to build on
knowledge. Leaders should build organisational structures that enable
healthcare staff to be involved in all phases of AI, from development to
78 implementation. Conclusions: Developing skills in new technologies in
healthcare requires new knowledge and building trust in AI. While this
zdravje delovno aktivnih in starejših odraslih | health of working-age and older adults
technology improves workplaces and processes, it is important to ensure
that the humanity of the work environment and the relationship with
patients of different generations is not diminished.

Keywords: healthcare, development of new technologies, education,
quality of life

Introduction
Artificial intelligence (AI) has entered our lives. Should we stop its develop-
ment in fear of the “new master” of the future? In reality, we humans have
largely set our own limits and created our own worries with regard to the en-
vironment, the individual and society as a whole. We only need to use the new
tools offered by technology to develop our potential and to retain a real meas-
ure of humanity and reason while taking responsibility.
Researcher Neher (2023) and her colleagues have defined artificial intelli-
gence (AI) as a “machine system” that can make predictions, recommendations
or decisions in real or virtual environments for a set of human-defined goals.
AI’s capability brings many positive impacts to humanity in various fields: im-
proving education, optimising business processes, advancing agriculture and
environmental protection, responding faster to natural disasters, integrating
renewable energy, global communication, financial security, medicine (Villani,
2018).
In the field of healthcare, AI has great potential. Healthcare systems
around the world are facing demographic changes, new technologies, increased
patient expectations and healthcare workforce shortages. These factors are in
turn contributing to the difficulty of balancing growing healthcare needs with
limited financial and other resources (Posnett, 2022; Logar Čuček, 2023). The