ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) IN PHARMACOVIGILANCE: DO WE REALLY NEED IT…?

There seems to be a lack of clarity about the meaning of terms such as “artificial intelligence (AI)”, “machine learning (ML)”, “data science (DS)” and “office automation (OA)”, which should not be used interchangeably. Pharmacovigilance (PV) represents a very interesting field in this regard, since it poses some unique technical challenges. For example, the “signal to noise ratio” and the “quality of the information” are very different in reports from clinical trials and in information coming from social networks, smartphone apps or smartwatches, and therefore require different approaches. Case processing, moreover, requires a mix of administrative and repetitive tasks (e.g. data cleaning and form filling) and tasks that require a high level of experience and specialization (e.g. medical reviews and signal detection). For more information, contact us.