New Delhi: Maheshwaran Rajendran does not have the support system that many elderly people (adult children) have and could not attend post-knee surgery rehabilitation sessions at the hospital daily. So doctors gave the 72-year-old an AI-powered app to help him exercise right in his bedroom.
AI It has not replaced doctors, nurses or paramedical staff, but is being increasingly adopted to improve treatment outcomes. In some corporate hospitals, he acts as a scribe for doctors and keeps a preliminary diagnosis and therapy options ready for approval.
“The rehabilitation app is a perfect example,” says Dr G Balamurali of Kauvery Hospital. Many of the spine surgeon’s elderly patients skip rehab because they need help traveling to the hospital. “Now we ask them to use an AI-powered application. They do the exercises we teach them in front of the phone camera and the app tells them if they are doing it correctly. Our rehabilitation center also tracks patient improvement.”
People like Rajendran say hospital visits for rehabilitation have been reduced to once every two weeks compared to the previous, almost daily visits. “We’ve come a long way from telemedicine, when we could just see patients and offer consultations,” says Dr. Balamurali.
In recent years, hospitals like Sankara Nethralaya have been using AI-powered equipment to examine eyes from remote and hard-to-reach areas. High-risk patients are identified using artificial intelligence tools and referred to ophthalmologists for treatment. “More accurate diagnosis, personalized care and precision surgeries: AI and healthcare are proving that they are made for each other, not only in laboratory experiments but also in hospital wards,” says Professor Krishnakumar R, Department of Medical Sciences and Technology, IIT Madras. .
For the past few weeks, Voluntary Health Services’ cath lab has been using artificial intelligence algorithms to refine the diagnosis. It has a full-time cardiologist to handle emergencies and staff trained by Dr. Ajit Mullasari, director of cardiology at Madras Medical Mission, and his team. AI algorithms can quickly and accurately identify blockages and other abnormalities in angiograms, reducing the potential for human error and leading to more reliable diagnoses, says Dr S Suresh, secretary, VHS.
Dr. Mullasari says these tools can analyze large amounts of data from electrocardiograms (ECGs) and other diagnostic tests to quickly identify patients with heart attacks. “AI algorithms can also predict the risk of heart attacks by analyzing subtle changes in medical images and patient data. “This helps in early intervention and personalized treatment plans, potentially saving lives and reducing healthcare costs,” he says.
While Dr. Mullasari and his team work with IIT-M on developing more AI tools for cardiology, IIT-M scientists have been working on models that can diagnose diabetes before blood tests show high sugar levels. “With AI, we have the opportunity to finally reverse the trend of chronic diseases,” says Dr V Mohan, Senior Diabetologist. He admits that it will take time to overcome obstacles such as patient privacy and convince policymakers to create a regulatory environment, “but it can certainly revolutionize treatment.”
The city’s laboratories are already showing promise. Professor Krishnakumar of IIT-M, who along with his team is researching the issue, says they can create a digital twin of a patient with all the medical records in 45 minutes in their laboratory. “Within an hour of creating the synthetic patient on the computer, we can test at least five different types of treatment options based on these models. And almost eight times out of ten, the results we predicted have worked.” Experienced cardiac surgeons, including Dr KR Balakrishnan, have been working with the team to improve treatment outcomes in cardiac surgeries.
While organizations like the WHO ask public health officials to be prepared for more frequent outbreaks of infectious diseases, public health officials hope to turn to AI for help.
