There are endless opportunities to leverage technology for deploying more precise, efficient, and impactful interventions at the right moment in a patient’s care, shares Deepak Sharma, Co-Founder & CEO, MedLern with Kaanchi Chawla of Elets News Network (ENN). Edited excerpts:

Which are the healthcare segments that are witnessing augmented use of AI in delivering efficient healthcare?

Data is the fuel that helps build successful AI products. And while there is a lot of data that is collected in healthcare, this needs to be easy to digitise and digest before it can start being useful. No surprise, then that early candidates for novel use of AI have been diagnostics areas which capture data in a digital format – imaging, ECG etc. Healthcare is also a heavily regulated segment – so approvals for AI applications need more rigorous assessments than “AI-assisted” diagnostic applications. Other interesting areas that are emerging within healthcare settings are assisting intensivists in better monitoring of ICU patients.

Meanwhile, – other less regulated areas like wearables can develop and iterate faster and see faster adoption in the “consumer wellness” space. Non-acute areas like long-term wellness in areas like mental health, and diabetes have seen promising business models.

What according to you could be the growing potential of AI-based tools for healthcare delivery?

The holy grail of healthcare is personalised and precision medicine. This means that we will be able to rapidly provide diagnosis and treatment plans which are unique to each individual depending on genetic information, lifestyle and other factors – this will be impossible without AI.

The entire value chain – from drug discovery to diagnostics to procedures to care management, and finally to recovery and wellness, might look dramatically different in the next decade or so.

In healthcare, there are five streams of data that can be mined by AI: traditional diagnostics (imaging and lab), new omics (genomics, proteomics etc), patient records (HER/EMR), wearables data, and the vast body of research. The research to mine these areas and connect the dots to discover the rich nuggets is going on at a furious pace.

We predict that initial gains will be seen in less regulated applications – hospital and clinical operations, patient experience, consumer wearables and wellness, assisted diagnostics, pharma covigilance etc. But eventually, the big gains will be in drug discovery, personalised diagnostics, and other areas as well – as regulators increasingly gain confidence in AI-based techniques.

As an example – Google’s protein folding AI algorithms can dramatically reduce the cost and time of testing new molecules by rapidly simulating this virtually rather than in actual lab experiments.

The growing digital footprints and technology trends have enhanced the healthcare systems, but there still lies the need for human manpower. Where are the gaps in curating healthcare data?

Healthcare data is sensitive data and is very vulnerable to misuse. Digitising, and depersonalising data are primarily the critical steps. Data quality for different sources will vary based on means of capture, for example direct readings from wearables will be more reliable than data from digitised paper records etc. Creating meaningful classifications, setting up and training relevant models needs a pool of talented manpower that is well versed in the healthcare domain data science and newly emerging areas like bioinformatics and computational biology. Interpretation and analysis of results in untested areas will continue to demand deep expertise by medical experts as the areas of application expand rapidly.

On a related note, AI will hopefully free up nurses and doctors to be able to bring more “care” to healthcare by enabling them to demonstrate empathy and foster a human connection with patients.

As technological advancements continue rapidly, healthcare providers move towards more digital care options to enhance their treatment and patient experience. Your thoughts.

The Covid pandemic forced the pace of adoption of digital channels and supply chains. Acceptability of telehealth at the home supply of diagnostic services and drugs increased significantly. We are now witnessing somewhat of a slide back to more traditional care but we need to distinguish between digital tools focused on convenience and experience against those that provide better treatment outcomes. While the former is easier to initiate, better treatment outcomes using digital tools still have a long way to go.

AI-enabled robots can be a big boon in healthcare. How do you think it is helping doctors in their day-to-day life?

Areas like robotic surgery make headlines for the dramatic potential, but compared with, say, driverless cars – still pose a big risky area. These developments will be carefully scrutinised for some time to come by regulators before becoming anywhere close to mainstream. Robot assistants for doctors may have more adoption potential.

Another promising area will be nanobots. These are very tiny robots that can enter the bloodstream and deliver precise molecules or treatments or collect samples from very specific areas of the body. This is no longer science fiction and is drawing a massive amount of research activity due to the potential to reduce the side effects of more broadly delivered treatments.

Closer to our daily experience – software robots or “chatbots” or personal assistants like Alexa and Google can be trained to not just detect signals from wearables and correlate them to the tone of voice etc, to alert one of any areas of concern or even improve treatment through simple interventions, like nudging you to take your medicines, get tests done or alert your doctor for emergencies.

Where do you see healthcare 5 years down the line?

India is in dire need of healthcare, human resources and infrastructure due to its population, disease burden trends and lifestyle changes. But we can leapfrog ahead if we are bolder in the adoption of technology as we did in rolling out mobile telephony. Initiatives like the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission can help us cover ground in this time that developed countries have struggled to do for decades. This can form the backbone of innovation for everything from care delivery to diagnostics. The rapid diffusion and adoption of innovation will also ultimately depend on using digital strategies to keep our healthcare workforce trained, upskilled and updated in a mission mode.

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