Transforming India's Public Health System with AI Innovations
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Synopsis
The Health Ministry of India is harnessing artificial intelligence to revolutionize public health services. Key AI innovations include decision support systems and disease surveillance tools, significantly improving health outcomes.
Key Takeaways
- AI is being used to transform public health in India.
- AIIMS institutions designated as 'Centre of Excellence for AI'.
- AI tools enhance disease surveillance and decision-making.
- Significant reduction in adverse outcomes reported with AI solutions.
- AI contributes to timely disease outbreak prevention.
New Delhi, March 21 (NationPress) The Health Ministry announced on Friday that it is utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to initiate significant changes in public health services nationwide.
The ministry has recognized AIIMS Delhi, PGIMER Chandigarh, and AIIMS Rishikesh as ‘Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence’ to facilitate the development and application of AI-based health solutions.
Among the AI solutions developed are the Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) integrated into e-Sanjeevani, the Media Disease Surveillance Solution in the IDSP, the Diabetic Retinopathy Identification tool, and the Abnormal Chest X-ray Classifier Model, with several other projects in initial phases, as stated by Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Prataprao Jadhav, in a written response in the Lok Sabha.
The Media Disease Surveillance (MDS) is an AI-powered tool that has been enhancing event-based surveillance for infectious diseases since April 2022.
This tool analyzes digital news sources nationwide and disseminates pertinent information to districts for prompt action and response.
Since its launch in April 2022, it has issued over 4,500 event alerts, playing a crucial role in the timely prevention and mitigation of disease outbreaks, thus lowering mortality and morbidity rates.
The Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS), an AI innovation, has been incorporated into the national telemedicine platform, eSanjeevani, to improve the quality of consultations by organizing patient complaint entries and offering AI-driven differential diagnosis recommendations.
Following the integration of CDSS, 196 million eSanjeevani consultations benefited from standardized data collection, ensuring uniformity across health and wellness centers, and 12 million consultations have been supported by AI-suggested diagnoses, empowering doctors to make informed choices.
Within the framework of the Tuberculosis elimination initiative, the ‘Cough against TB’ AI solution is employed for screening pulmonary TB in community settings.
In areas where it has been implemented, the solution has resulted in an additional yield of 12-16 percent in reported TB cases, which might have been overlooked if conventional screening methods were used.
The ‘Prediction of Adverse TB Outcomes AI Solution’ aids in forecasting which TB patients are likely to experience adverse outcomes as soon as treatment begins. A 27 percent reduction in adverse outcomes has been noted following the implementation of this AI solution, according to the ministry.
