Prof. Sandra C. Buttigieg, Head of the Department of Health Services Management at the Faculty of Health Sciences was invited, in her capacity as Associate Editor of Frontiers Open-access publisher of peer-reviewed scientific articles, to participate at BIOVISION – 12th Edition – The World Life Sciences Forum- Lyon, France, with the theme 'One Health, One Place'. She was first interviewed on the theme prior to travelling to the forum.
BIOVISION is a world-class forum which attracts more than 1000 participants in academia, civil society, policy-making, and the private sector and addresses evidence and research, as well as development and promotion.The programme can be viewed at www.biovision.org/biovision.php.
Prof. Buttigieg facilitated the session entitled 'Artificial Intelligence... a generous revolution serving health' in which a high level panel composed of representatives from academia, industry, and European Commission participated. The session can be viewed on Youtube.
During an interview for BIOVISION TV, related to the session, (see interview on Youtube) which was conducted by a the well-known France 24 journalist Alexia Kefalas, Prof. Buttigieg spoke about the virtual and physical branches of artificial intelligence.
Prof. Buttigieg explained how the virtual branch results in information and data are being made available to professionals for decision-making thus providing tools to deliver dynamic, integrated and safe healthcare. She also mentioned the importance of empathy: artificial intelligence is to be used for the benefit of the patient so as to enable the patient to become empowered and knowledgeable about the illness, the conditions and the experiences that might have an impact on health. Prof. Buttigieg stressed the fact that artificial intelligence is to be used in an ethical manner.
Prof. Buttigieg explained how the virtual branch results in information and data are being made available to professionals for decision-making thus providing tools to deliver dynamic, integrated and safe healthcare. She also mentioned the importance of empathy: artificial intelligence is to be used for the benefit of the patient so as to enable the patient to become empowered and knowledgeable about the illness, the conditions and the experiences that might have an impact on health. Prof. Buttigieg stressed the fact that artificial intelligence is to be used in an ethical manner.
With regard to the physical side of artificial intelligence, Prof. Buttigieg said that, with the help of robotics, clinicians and surgeons are getting less invasive and more precise, thus using technology for the benefit of the patient. She also emphasised that embodied in this branch are targeted nano-robots, a unique new drug delivery system. Prof. Buttigieg concluded that societal and ethical challenges and complexities of these applications require more in-depth considerations and development of transdisciplinary strategies for their wider application. She stressed that vested interests of stakeholders may get in the way of innovation, and that transdisciplinarity, under the umbrella of One Health, should be the path for further progress.