Nageshwar Reddy: AI helps reduce money and increase efficiency

Introducing Mira, AIG Hospital's Medical Information Robot to delegates at the 12th Dr Manohar V N Shirodkar Memorial Lecture on 'Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare' at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) on Wednesday, Dr Reddy said: "Most patients prefer interacting with Mira over me — likely because she’s more efficient and can answer their queries faster,” he said. “AI will transform agriculture, education, and healthcare.”

The key points of change that AI will bring in India's healthcare system would be largely in customised patient services, efficiency in diagnosis and less time consumption in hospital administrative services. "Now drug discovery happens in two years which used to take 20 years earlier. Vaccines can be developed in around a month," he said.

From drug response prediction to detecting cancerous lesions, AI is becoming inevitable in healthcare. A simple blood test would be able to predict the occurrence of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) among patients, which at present 30 per cent of Indians are grappling with.

This will also percolate in other areas of medical sciences such as AI-enabled ECG machines detecting diseases of liver and the heart. Dr Reddy also referred to contactless beds that provide medicinal doses, wearable devices and mobile applications that can detect diseases and softwares that can help hospital administration to store, track and analyse patient data.

However, the limitations are that all that data needs to be protected, to avoid data breaches as it occurred two years ago in AIIMS Delhi. "Like never before, one has to be particularly ethical about use of AI and patient data. It will certainly lead to unemployment and deskilling, as only those doctors would be hired who know how to use AI and it might lead the younger ones to rely on technology rather than their own capabilities,” he said.