Three months in to 2019 and one thing is clear, this year is the year that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has come into its own. No longer the stuff of science fiction movies and prognostication, AI is being put to work in many fields to automate tasks, improve decision making, and in the healthcare field to improve patient outcomes.

In a recent post on NetApp’s blog, Mike McNamara, senior manager of product and solution marketing at NetApp, shared that AI is helping change the face of healthcare and improve patient outcomes in myriad ways. The high rate of diagnostic errors, the challenges of physician burnout, the rising costs of care, and the costs of medical and pharmaceutical research are just a few of the areas where AI will make a significant impact this year.

According to McNamara: “Doctors are now making faster, more accurate diagnoses thanks to AI. Of heart patients, 61% are avoiding invasive angiograms, cutting treatment costs by 26%. AI is reducing diagnosis errors in breast cancer patients by 85% and enabling MRIs to accelerate image reconstruction by a factor of 100—with 5-times greater accuracy.”

While AI is ostensibly responsible for these impressive results, what fuels the process is data and the next-generation of supercomputing. It’s no longer enough to know that you have the data stored in a data center. For AI to deliver results like reducing the costs of new drug development by $2.6 billion the data that fuels its outcomes has to be supercomputer-ready and stored in a cloud-connected storage environment. Only then will the data be part of a simplified, accelerated, and integrated pipeline that helps researchers analyze millions of molecules that will find the next lifesaving drug and enable physicians to quickly and accurately diagnose disease.

Here’s an infographic that showcases how AI is changing and improving healthcare and patient outcomes.