New Delhi: A small farmer from a remote village walks into the nearest city health clinic. He breathes through a tube connected to a Vionix Analysis. This device compares the farmer’s breath with hundreds of millions of other samples from around the world. An AI model, running in the cloud, identifies patterns of manifestations of the disease on the spectral signatures of the breath sample and provides results instantly on the farmer’s smartphone. It also offers advice on treating the condition using Ayurveda, locally sourced herbs or western medicine.
This is a beautiful early flyer. disease detection that even the poor will be able to afford, something that would not have been possible without recent advances in AI. With technologies like these that our company is developing, any new outbreak of COVID variants or new diseases that AI algorithms are trained on can be retroactively analyzed around the world.
Health challenges
Helping people detect health problems more quickly is just one aspect of how AI can improve healthcare. India, like the rest of the world, faces immense challenges in providing high-quality care to its population. Transportation remains a major obstacle; Patients often travel for days to reach the hospital. Once there, they may have to stay nearby for days while they undergo a series of tests. Another challenge is the distribution of critical medical supplies – such as blood, vaccines or medicines – to remote locations. Additionally, there is a significant shortage of trained medical professionals struggling to keep up with the latest advances in their fields.
AI has the potential to address all of these challenges. HD Steth, developed by Indian company HD Medical, combines AI and integrated ECG to provide immediate cardiac information at the point of care and directly uploads visualizations and diagnostics to a smartphone. Eliminating the need for costly echocardiograms typically performed by highly trained technicians, this stethoscope is easy to use even outside of traditional healthcare settings. HD Steth is approved for sale by the US FDA and is supported by leading institutions such as the University of California, San Francisco. Drone systems that use AI to navigate autonomously are already delivering vital medical supplies in Africa. In India, dozens of drone startups are competing in this delivery market, with artificial intelligence systems increasingly capable of maneuvering through complex urban environments and delivering fragile items with precision.
Indian solution in global products
For serious accident patients, especially those with head injuries, time is of the essence. Another Indian company, Qure.ai, has developed a system that uses AI to automatically classify patient conditions from the head and CT scans of the neck. This allows medical teams to prioritize treatment and surgery much more quickly and accurately. Qure technology is also integrated into imaging systems from global companies such as Philips and GE Healthcare and includes tools for diagnose conditions on chest x-rays, as a screening tool for tuberculosis, a disease that is re-emerging and increasingly drug resistant disease.
In almost every field where there is data and a big problem to solve, AI can be transformative. Their ability to process and analyze large data sets far exceeds human capabilities, leading to advances in fields as diverse as medical diagnostics, environmental sciences, finance, transportation, and public safety.
Vivek Wadhwa is CEO and Alex Salkever heads marketing for Vionix Biosciences. Wadhwa has been a distinguished fellow and adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Salkever has worked with The Linux Foundation and Mozilla.
