Mumbai: Mohit Sood, Regional Managing Director, ZS, interacted with ETHealthworld‘s Prabhat Prakash on how India is using artificial intelligence (AI) and GenAI to address gaps in healthcare delivery. He emphasized the need for a robust digital solution and AI-connected data ecosystem to improve healthcare accessibility and equity. Below are edited excerpts from their conversation.
How can India position itself as a global technology leader in innovation? Share some examples of Indian technology innovations having a global impact.
India has gradually emerged as a global hub for technological innovation, driven by a skilled workforce, cost competitiveness and positive ecosystems for GCCs and startups. The healthcare sector is already building an interconnected, patient-centric model, with numerous healthcare and life sciences companies implementing GenAI Solutions. GenAI is increasingly integrated into healthcare operations, improving outcomes for everyone. While interest in GenAI tools for R&D is significant, classical AI and GenAI are also finding critical use cases in drug discovery and development. Historically, AI has played a role in clinical trial planning, execution and research and has been gradually adopted at all levels. In the Indian pharmaceutical industry, AI has the potential to improve disease prevention and early diagnosis. He National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) aims to facilitate digital solutions for universal access to healthcare.
How are you implementing artificial intelligence, analytics and data science, and to what extent are they critical to your operations? How are these technologies driving business transformation and decision making?
We leverage our cutting-edge foundation in analytics and technology, combined with data, science and products, to help our clients make smart decisions and deliver innovative solutions. By incorporating GenAI into analytics for drug development and brand planning, we have reduced effort and time by more than 30 percent, accelerating execution.
Our latest GenAI innovation, Max.AI, accelerates multiple enterprise use cases with AI agents. These agents enable easy setup and deployment within 2-4 weeks, rapid build and follow-up, supported by engineering, AI, and customer success experts. We incorporate cross-industry insights, market research and competitive intelligence to improve programs for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.
How is GenAI transforming operations across various industries? How are you leveraging GenAI to improve efficiency and innovation?
Companies across all sectors are recognizing the critical role of AI in enabling innovative solutions to optimize efficiency. Various forms of AI, including multimodal, generative and predictive, have the potential to optimize all aspects of business. We leverage innovations and advanced AI technology to solve complex problems in finance, retail, telecommunications, travel and hospitality.
In life sciences, we apply artificial intelligence products and platforms to optimize clinical trials, facilitating easier identification of appropriate patient groups, predicting treatment progression, and anticipating patient journeys with specific milestones. GenAI has transformed our operations, enabling unique solutions for knowledge sharing, social learning, and creative experimentation within the organization. For example, our GenAI Jam Week celebrates innovation through leadership sessions, workshops and hackathons, creating a platform for us to explore flagship applications of AI and their real-world applications.
What are the challenges in integrating diverse technologies into a cohesive data ecosystem?
Healthcare and life sciences companies face multiple technological challenges when adopting and implementing advanced data ecosystem and artificial intelligence solutions. A common challenge is fragmented data sources. The complexity of obtaining data and ensuring its quality creates difficulties in understanding and managing interdependencies, increased redundancies and silos in India.
We believe that gaining a more integrated view of the pharmaceutical, life sciences and healthcare industries will facilitate coordinated patient care and lead to impactful research beyond the great work already done in the sector.
What are the essential components to building a strong connected data ecosystem?
Data integration creates a unified system that improves communication and collaboration between all parties. Such a consistent approach is essential for healthcare providers to gain a holistic view of all patients, combining relevant data to deliver accurate and personalized care.
Building a connected and robust data ecosystem requires data standardization. Rigorous data quality checks and harmonization are needed to ensure easier linkage between disease codes, product codes, physician codes and names. This is where data management plays a crucial role in two layers of security: creating a highly secure platform and understanding who has access and visibility to the data, with appropriate controls.
How can healthcare be made more equitable and accessible with digital solutions and artificial intelligence?
In the Indian healthcare market, limited resources and lack of access to technology are major concerns. However, increasing innovation has allowed the development of tools that overcome these challenges. New AI solutions have the potential to improve disease prevention and early diagnosis, addressing the lack of healthcare resources in India.
We place health equity at the center of our business, believing it is key to improving the healthcare ecosystem. Our goal is to understand and address the social drivers of health, bringing together healthcare stakeholders to address inequalities. As a commitment to this cause, we joined more than 40 organizations to sign the World Economic Forum’s Zero Health Gap Commitment and the Healthcare Leadership Council’s commitment to advance health equity.
We continue to partner with healthcare players to improve patient experiences and expand access to care. Our solutions, from patient and consumer health to clinical development, artificial intelligence and omnichannel marketing, are influencing systemic change.
How can the national response to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) be collectively improved through technology? How can public-private partnerships leverage technology for national healthcare initiatives?
Technological advances have transformed the detection and treatment of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), with AI playing a role in analyzing data, identifying patterns and predicting potential NCD risks. While the government and private entities have independently made efforts to build defenses against NCDs, the World Health Organization (WHO) proposed that collaboration with the private sector can improve the effectiveness of healthcare initiatives.
Through public-private partnerships, technological support can facilitate the adoption of tools such as electronic health records (EHR). EHRs streamline patient data management, making shared information more accessible, improving care coordination, and enabling informed treatment decisions. Advanced tools such as AI-based cardiac risk scores can be developed based on comprehensive demographic data from India, providing personalized risk predictions that match the unique health profiles of individuals.
