Electronic Health Reporter

In recent years, the public sector has become increasingly aware of the multifaceted potential of big data. These days, government agencies around the world collect vast amounts of data from people’s activities, behaviors, and interactions—a virtual treasure trove of information that the public sector can utilize and turn into actionable insights, and later, into actual solutions.

The big challenge, however, is that government agencies are falling under more and more pressure to find relevant insights from complex data while relying on limited resources and technologies with inadequate capabilities. And with the sheer size of data being generated nowadays, it’s becoming more difficult to extract meaning from what the data hides beyond their colossal façade.

Thankfully, there is one critical technology that is redefining the way public sector agencies study and utilize data, and this is artificial intelligence. Today, artificial intelligence solutions that make use of technologies like machine learning and topological data analysis can automatically process big data and discover patterns and anomalies no matter how complex and seemingly disjointed these different points of data are.

Precisely because of these advantages, artificial intelligence solutions are now being used by numerous public sector agencies and institutions around the world.  In this article, we’ll fill you in on the basics of three important areas of the public sector in which AI is currently making waves.

Financials

The financial industry is one of the biggest producers and exchangers of data, and as such, it stands to benefit immensely from artificial intelligence technologies. Every day, government-owned banks and other financial institutions buy, borrow, and trade currencies and financial products, generating massive amounts of data from customers, partners, and other stakeholders.

By using artificial intelligence solutions for financial services, institutions can develop an intelligence framework that will allow them to cater to customer needs, understand and manage regulatory risks, and proactively prevent money-laundering activities. This way, public sector financial services are able to assume a position of strength over increasingly complex challenges.

Population Health

In many jurisdictions over the world, value-based care is being adopted as an alternative healthcare model that focuses more on accountability, and on the type and quality of service provided to patients instead of the volume of care provided. With this increased emphasis on value, government-aligned health providers and insurance systems have begun using artificial intelligence software in order to become more agile and proficient at managing the risks of patient pools.

This way, even with the immensity and complexity of patient data, public sector providers and health payers are able to better understand clinical variations, as well as automatically predict individual and subpopulation risk and health condition trajectories. Through insights gained from these data, clinicians and other personnel across the healthcare spectrum can then better determine the best and most affordable courses of care, in addition to being able to confidently recommend the most appropriate health programs for their governments to implement.

Traffic Management

Today people are already beginning to see some of the applications of artificial intelligence in traffic management, a good preview of a future in which governments and public sector agencies will be able to maximize the utility of public infrastructure and transportation assets by making use of real-time information delivered by adaptive signal control technologies and individual drivers and smart vehicles.

For instance, smart traffic lights can change their timing based on real-time traffic data, while smart public transit systems can help the riding public know when to expect buses and trains to arrive in their destinations. Smart parking lots have also emerged in some cities around the world, allowing drivers to find available parking spaces more easily.

For individual drivers, well-known companies have also long provided solutions to help them navigate daily traffic. For instance, the Google-owned Waze app provides drivers real-time information about road works, traffic accidents, road hazards, and police sightings in order to optimize their routes and prevent delays in their commute. This type of AI powered prediction is something cities of the future can emulate to make themselves more adept and efficient at traffic management.

Artificial intelligence technologies are changing the way many governments and public sector institutions operate. How about you? What smart solutions would you like to see being implemented in your own city or country?