Python Programming

Today, Python is one of the most popular programming languages. Although it is a general-
purpose language, it is used in various areas of applications such as Machine Learning, Artificial
Intelligence, web development, IoT, and more.

Python is a very popular general-purpose interpreted, interactive, object-oriented, and high-level

programming language. Python is dynamically-typed and garbage-collected programming
language. It was created by Guido van Rossum during 1985- 1990. Like Perl, Python source
code is also available under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Python Jobs

Today, Python is very high in demand and all the major companies are looking for great Python
Programmers to develop websites, software components, and applications or to work with Data
Science, AI, and ML technologies.

It's impossible to list all of the companies using Python, to name a few big companies are:

Google Intel NASA

Google

PayPal Facebook IBM

Amazon Netflix Pinterest

Why to Learn Python?

Python is consistently rated as one of the world's most popular programming
languages. Python is fairly easy to learn, so if you are starting to learn any
programming language then Python could be your great choice. Today various
Schools, Colleges and Universities are teaching Python as their primary
programming language. There are many other good reasons which makes Python as
the top choice of any programmer:
  Python is Open Source which means its available free of cost.
 Python is simple and so easy to learn
 Python is versatile and can be used to create many different things.
 Python has powerful development libraries include AI, ML etc.
 Python is much in demand and ensures high salary
Python is a MUST for students and working professionals to become a great
Software Engineer specially when they are working in Web Development Domain. I
will list down some of the key advantages of learning Python:
 Python is Interpreted − Python is processed at runtime by the interpreter. You do
not need to compile your program before executing it. This is similar to PERL and
PHP.
 Python is Interactive − You can actually sit at a Python prompt and interact with the
interpreter directly to write your programs.
 Python is Object-Oriented − Python supports Object-Oriented style or technique of
programming that encapsulates code within objects.
 Python is a Beginner's Language − Python is a great language for the beginner-level
programmers and supports the development of a wide range of applications from
simple text processing to WWW browsers to games.

Applications of Python

The latest release of Python is 3.x. As mentioned before, Python is one of the most widely
used language over the web. I'm going to list few of them here:

 Easy-to-learn − Python has few keywords, simple structure, and a clearly defined
syntax. This allows the student to pick up the language quickly.
 Easy-to-read − Python code is more clearly defined and visible to the eyes.
 Easy-to-maintain − Python's source code is fairly easy-to-maintain.
 A broad standard library − Python's bulk of the library is very portable and cross-
platform compatible on UNIX, Windows, and Macintosh.
 Interactive Mode − Python has support for an interactive mode which allows
interactive testing and debugging of snippets of code.
 Portable − Python can run on a wide variety of hardware platforms and has the
same interface on all platforms.
 Extendable − You can add low-level modules to the Python interpreter. These
modules enable programmers to add to or customize their tools to be more efficient.
 Databases − Python provides interfaces to all major commercial databases.
 GUI Programming − Python supports GUI applications that can be created and
ported to many system calls, libraries and windows systems, such as Windows MFC,
Macintosh, and the X Window system of Unix.
 Scalable − Python provides a better structure and support for large programs than
shell scripting.
 Python in Healthcare: AI Applications in Hospitals
Learn about how python-based applications are transforming the healthcare industry.

Introduction
In the modern world, computers and smartphones have taken over many aspects of
our lives, and the healthcare industry is no exception. Health practitioners are
increasingly migrating health and healthcare data from paper to electronic formats,
and healthcare facilities are generating massive amounts of data as a result. Python is
an essential programming language that data scientists use to create solutions for
multiple challenges in healthcare, and it offers a diverse set of tools to generate
significant insights from data for healthcare professionals. Doctors can use Python-
powered applications to make better prognoses and improve the quality of healthcare
delivery. In the healthcare sector, data scientists use Python mainly to build machine
learning algorithms and software applications for:

 Performing medical diagnostics

 Improving efficiency of hospital operations
 Genomic studies
 Drug discovery
 Predictive analytics
 The principal applications of Python in healthcare are based on machine learning (ML)
and natural language processing (NLP) algorithms. Such applications include image diagnostics,
natural language processing of medical documents, and prediction of diseases using human
genetics. Such applications are essential to the health care sector: they process and analyze the
data into understandable, meaningful, and reliable information for patients and health workers.
The following section provides details of how data scientists and healthcare practitioners use ML
and NLP in Python to solve healthcare challenges and improve patients’ health outcomes.

Using Python for Image Diagnostics

One of the most promising technological developments in healthcare is the use of ML to analyze
multiple images such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computerized tomography
(CT), and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) scans to provide diagnostics. While the human
brain can have a hard time analyzing multiple images simultaneously, machine learning solutions
are good at processing multiple pieces of information into producing a single diagnostic
outcome. Sarker (2021) provides examples of real-world applications of machine learning in
healthcare and research direction. It’s also of note that the accuracy of using Python in
machine learning for image analysis is about 92%. This falls slightly below the accuracy of
96% for senior clinicians. However, when pathologists vet machine learning models, the
accuracy rate can rise to 99.5%.

Detecting and Classifying Tumors

One of the most common applications of machine learning technologies in healthcare is for the
detection of tumors using computer-automated detection (CAD). These techniques apply
CNNs to compute the probability that a lesion is indeed a lesion. For example, in mammography,
AI tools can provide a ‘second’ opinion for many radiologists. This significantly improves the
accuracy of screenings without increasing the cost related to using a human to give a ‘second
opinion’.

Physicians have had challenges with the detection and classification of glioblastoma—a type of
brain tumor. The difficulty lies with the invasive and pervasive nature of these tumors. Unlike
other brain tumors, these tumors are difficult to locate and assess how they respond to treatment.
Deep learning helps to automate the assessment of glioblastoma MRIs.

Detecting Cardiovascular Abnormalities

Using Python to automate the detection of heart abnormalities from images, such as chest x-rays,
can speed-up decision-making and reduce diagnostic errors. When a patient is exhibiting
symptoms like shortness of breath, physicians often request a chest radiograph as a tool
for cardiomegaly. AI tools created with Python can help to automate assessment tasks such as
measuring the diameter of pulmonary artery and carina angle measurement. For example, the
figure below shows how data scientists use ML to predict cardiovascular disease using patients’
clinical characteristics (such as gender, smoking status, and hypertension risk, among other
factors). The model had an accuracy of about 76% (Weng et al., 2017).
Source: Weng et al. (2017)

ML algorithms can assess images and auto-generate reports, saving time for human practitioners
in classifying abnormalities from normal measurements.

Detecting Fractures and Other Injuries

Data scientists can use ML-powered tools to identify hard-to-see dislocations, fractures, and soft
tissue injuries, allowing surgeons to make more confident treatment choices. Using unbiased
algorithms to analyze images can help medical practitioners to account for all injuries and
provide the best treatments. AI tools can help to perform a comprehensive analysis of medical
images and generate accurate reports in a timely manner, minimizing patient risk, false
negatives, and legal risk for medical practitioners.

Detecting Thoracic Conditions and Complications

Thoracic conditions such as pneumonia require quick reactions from healthcare providers.
Physicians use radiology images to diagnose pneumonia and distinguish the condition from other
lung conditions, such as COVID-19. However, as Hasan et al. (2021) demonstrate, radiologists
may not always be available to analyze the images and write reports for physicians. Even when
they are available, they may have difficulty in identifying pneumonia if the patient has pre-
existing lung conditions. A Python-based AI algorithm can analyze x-rays and other medical
images to detect pneumonia, then automatically alert healthcare providers to offer appropriate
treatment.

Screening for Common Cancers

Oncologists use medical imaging to perform routine, preventive screenings for cancers, such as
colon cancer, prostate cancer, and breast cancer. In screening for breast cancer, radiologists may
 have a challenge in conclusively classifying a tumor as either benign or malignant. False
positives could lead to unnecessary invasive testing or treatment, while missed malignancies
could cause delayed diagnoses and untoward outcomes. Using AI can help improve the accuracy
of reading medical images, potentially decreasing the rate of unnecessary benign biopsies.

Use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Healthcare

Data scientists and healthcare practitioners use natural language processing (NLP) tools to
process and analyze a wide range of factors, including patient encounters, symptoms, and vitals,
among others. NLP can provide a cheaper way of rapidly scanning medical documents and
integrating the resulting information into a database, as NLP systems extract readable data from
texts and images to identify keywords and terms. There are many exciting possibilities for
applying NLP in healthcare. These applications are mainly for improving medical research and
medicine. This section highlights some uses of NLP in healthcare. The list is not exhaustive, but
a highlight of some applications of machine learning applications.

Using NLP to create a clinical decision support (CDS) system

You can use NLP to create a system for improving clinical decision support (CDS) using
historical patient records. Such a system can aid physicians in making clinical decisions for
patients based on a database of knowledge. The database can include information extracted from
physicians’ notes (hand-written or typed), labs, or transcribed audio. The system works by
extracting patient information from medical records and then associating possible disease states
based on the information from previous cases and/or literature.

Using NLP to improve Phenotyping Capabilities

A phenotype is an observable expression of a specific trait (physical or biochemical) in an
organism. Clinicians use phenotyping to classify patients to gain deeper insight into their data
and comparison to cohorts.

 NLP is a valuable tool for extracting and analyzing unstructured data, which makes up 80
percent of all patient data available.
 NLP also allows for richer phenotyping because pathology reports contain a lot of information
about patients.
 NLP empowers analysts to extract this data to answer complex and specific questions such as
which genetic mutations are associated with cancerous tissue types.
Predicting the Onset of Psychosis
Researchers have published a report on the application of NLP, using a technique known as
Latent Semantic Analysis, in predicting the onset of psychosis using transcribed audio files of
clinically high-risk youth. The model achieved an accuracy of 93% in training and 90% on test
datasets. The model did well in predicting whether a patient would develop psychosis, albeit
the small sample size of 40 participants.

Identification and Risk-stratification of Cirrhosis Patients

Another application of NLP in healthcare is the identification of cirrhosis patients. Another study
used NLP to identify cirrhosis patients and risk-stratify the patients. This study was able to
correctly identify cirrhosis patients from electronic health records, ICD-9 code combinations,
and radiological scans with an accuracy of 95.71%. This indicates that such a system could
correctly identify cirrhosis patients based on existing medical data in most hospitals.
Identification of Reportable Cancer Cases
Another study used NLP to identify reportable cancer cases for national cancer registries. The
aim was to automate reporting cancer patients to the National Program of Cancer Registries in
the U.S. The study used NLP to analyze pathology reports and diagnoses, and identify cancer
patients using supervised machine learning with an accuracy of 87.2%.

Application of NLP for Predictive Analytics

One of the more exciting benefits of NLP is its ability to allow for the development of predictive
analytics to improve health outcomes in a population. One example is the analysis of social
media posts to detect potential suicide cases and intervene. Suicide is one of the leading causes
of death in the United States. In a recent survey, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
showed that about 12 million adults in America have had serious suicidal thoughts. About 10%
of this group made plans and attempted suicide.

Source: NIMH (2021). Suicidal Thoughts and Behavior among U.S. adults.

Healthcare professionals want to identify individuals or cohorts that are at risk so that they can
intervene. There are several studies that predict suicide attempts using social media posts. One
study used Twitter data to develop a model with a high accuracy level (about 70%). Key
findings included that users at imminent risk of committing suicide posted fewer emojis in text
and mostly used blue emojis or broken heart symbols. They also posted sad or angry tweets
before attempting suicide. Coppersmith (2018) also predicted suicide instances using NLP with
an accuracy of more than 70% (see figure with ROC).
Source: Coppersmith et al. (2018)

Healthcare organizations are already using NLP to pick the low-hanging fruit from the enormous
tree of data science. Major tech entities are increasingly creating NLP tools for healthcare. For
example, Amazon has a user-friendly clinical NLP tool that helps medical practitioners to
extract insights from unstructured data. They can easily recruit patients to a trial study, find the
right diagnosis for patients and build warning systems for early detection of conditions such as
sclerosis.

Using Python to Predict and Analyze Complex Diseases

Analysts use machine learning algorithms in Python to analyze genetics for predicting disease
and establishing the cause of disease. Gaining insight into how genetics affect an individual’s
risk can help in preventative healthcare.This can provide notable information for doctors on how
to customize patients’ health care plans, to mitigate the risk of acquiring more complex diseases.

It is difficult to predict how any disease will evolve and many systems are inefficient at this task
as some diseases mutate quickly and unexpectedly. Using Python, developers can build efficient
Machine Learning models that can predict diseases before they become severe.

One of the key developments is next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques in human

genetics. NGS is an integral part of biological and medical research. The fundamental
significance of NGS has propagated the demand for processing and analyzing data sets
generated. This helps to address research questions on various issues such as metagenomic
quantification and classification, variant calling, and genomic feature detection.
In another example, Li et al. (2018) uses deep learning algorithms trained on a graphics
processing unit (GPU) to predict both heterogeneity and epistasis of complex diseases.

With machine learning, scientists can find disease patterns and trends which they can model in a
more predictable manner. Thus, machine learning has the potential to accurately predict those
that are at risk of acquiring certain diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and
Alzheimer’s disease.

Finally, Google has developed such a Deep Learning algorithm for detecting cancer in patients
using their medical data. The model is efficient and not only speeds up the process of treatment
but also reduces the risk of a patient having serious complications in the future due to poor
diagnosis.

Using Python to Improve Patient Experience

Managing patients can take significant resources. Facilities with limited staff can struggle to take
care of patients’ appointments, treatments, and general well-being. Developing healthcare apps
in Python can help healthcare facilities to manage patients, helping staff to focus on critical
activities.

Python applications can help patients to schedule their appointments, get answers to commonly
asked questions, request for medication refills, contact emergency services, and regularly update
their healthcare data for monitoring - allowing healthcare workers to focus on treating patients
with critical illnesses.

Enhancing Hospital Operations

Healthcare facilities can leverage Python to solve problems pertaining to resource constraints.
Data scientists can create models that optimize staffing so that healthcare facilities can avoid
problems like over-staffing a shift with low admission, or being understaffed during busy days.

Python-driven applications can optimize appointments, use of diagnostic facilities, and

treatment. Hospitals have limited ICU resources and need to optimize the use of these facilities.
In their study, Wu et al. (2021) used ML to predict length of intensive care unit (ICU) stay
among ICU patients. They used four different ML techniques (support vector machine, random
forest, deep learning, and gradient boosting decision tree). The last model, gradient boosting
decision tree, had the best performance with an accuracy of 74.7%. According to industry
analysts, AI applications have the potential to save the U.S. economy about $150 billion annually
by 2026 (Roth, 2021).

There are open source datasets that, as a data scientist, you can use to develop ML for predicting
ICU stay and help hospitals plan their resources. Check this Kaggle link to start. Additionally,
Data scientists can unleash the power of Python through ML tools such as Scikit-Learn, Keras,
TensorFlow, and Pytorch to improve how healthcare providers manage their costs and facilities.

Drug Discovery

Python programming language is a leading language of choice for modern drug discovery.
Virtually all job advertisements posted on indeed.com on drug discovery require Python
experience. Therefore, learning Python is no longer a choice, but a requirement for careers
related to drug discovery.
A good example of using Python in drug discovery is AstraZeneca’s PyMOL. AstraZeneca is
one of the companies leveraging Python to speed up drug discovery. PyMOL is a powerful tool
for displaying the 3D structures of disease targets. The tool has 12 different stereo visualization
modes that allow users to competently highlight and differentiate various structural features in
the targets. Scientists use tools to find the appropriate binding sites for drug molecules. The tool
is designed to adapt well to new prediction methods. The figure below shows how the tool
combs through millions of data to help in designing drug prototypes.

Source: PyMOL

PyMOL allows for visualizing the three-dimensional (3D) structures of the targeted disease
organisms. Using the visualizations, scientists gain better understanding of the fundamental
problems so that they can design new molecular constructs for appropriate tackling of the
disease.

Future of Using Python in Healthcare

The influx of large and complex healthcare datasets, need for reducing costs, and shrinking size
of the healthcare workforce is fueling the growth of AI/ML tools in the market. There is also a
rising number of collaborations and partnerships between human practitioners and AI-based
tools. The future looks bright for AI/ML and NLP developers, with some start-ups already
developing human-aware AI systems. There is a steady rise in using robots in healthcare.

Novel applications of robots in healthcare range from exoskeletons and prosthetics to nano-
robots and surgical robots. In the U.S., the healthcare robotics market will grow to about $32.5
billion by 2027—with an estimated CAGR of 21.3% for the period 2020-2027 (Xavor, 2021).

The fight against COVID-19 will continue to drive growth in the market, with AI technologies
deployed for imaging diagnostics, drug discovery, genomics, and predictive analytics.
 Source: Markets and Markets (2022).

The U.S. National Library of Medicine points out that precision medicine is “an emerging
approach for disease treatment and prevention that considers individual variability in
genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person.”

The future of healthcare is in the hands of AI/ML, with precision medicine likely to be one of the
most impactful benefits of using AI/ML in healthcare.

The goal of precision medicine is finding precise treatment options for a patient based on their
personal medical history, genetic information, lifestyle choices, and dynamically changing
pathological tests. The underlying aim is to combine the most powerful AI techniques (such as
deep neural networks, search algorithms, reinforcement learning, probabilistic models,
supervised learning, and others) to develop precision medicine tools. Its focus is to create AI
systems that can predict patients’ probability of having a certain disease using early screening or
routine exam data, and Python is at the forefront of the quest for precision medicine, with
developers creating AI tools to model why and in what circumstances diseases are more likely to
occur. This is important for preparing and guiding healthcare providers to intervene even before
an individual shows symptoms.

There are other truly exciting possibilities for the use of Python in creating AI/ML applications
such as digital surgery robots. Imagine an operation room where a patient goes in for robots to
carry out precise procedures on them, safely and precisely!
 Source: Robotics business review (2022)

AI-powered smart robots could work hand in hand with surgeons and leverage distributed data-
driven insights and guidance based on surgery histories and their outcomes. The possibilities of
using Python in healthcare are endless, with the future staying open for telemedicine and
performing remote surgery for minor procedures.

Conclusion

The application of Python in healthcare is not free of challenges. Data privacy and legal
framework challenges still stand in the way of it’s full application. It is also still difficult to find
data that third-party providers can use legally. There is a need for a massive rationalization effort
of the legalities and policymaking to address these challenges.

As data scientists and ML practitioners, we have a responsibility to create a bright future by

leveraging the power of AI algorithms to save costs and improve the lives of billions of people
worldwide.

You can get hands-on Python skills by coding along with the following guided projects:

 What Your Heart Rate is Telling You

 Clustering Heart Disease Patient Data
 Kidney Stones and Simpson's Paradox