Praveen had extensive experience in Supply Chain Management and ERP solutions, having worked at several global companies including i2 Technologies, where he helped customers streamline operations and adopt best practices.

In a conversation with Keerthana H K, Correspondent, CIO Insider Magazine, Praveen Singh Bist, CIO at Amrita Hospital, shared his views and thoughts on the key benefits that AI can bring to healthcare as well as how we can implement AI tools to enhance early disease detection.

According to you, what are the main challenges to implementing AI in healthcare, and how do you address them?
Main challenges and obstacles to implementing AI in healthcare are as follows:
(a) Having complete digitized data (EMR) for the patient, both from the requirement of input data to train / validate the AI model in Indian setting as well as for implementation of AI based Precision medicine for a specific patient. Now that Indian Government has laid down Digital Health policy (ABDM), we need to collectively start adhering to its requirements.

(b) Transparency issue around the decision making – so need some kind of explainable model/interface which can help answer the common questions like, why did AI gave the answer it came out with?

(c) Ethical questions around the responsibility – who is responsible if something goes wrong? So should be clear policies and guidelines around this.

(d) Since AI is an evolving field, the lack of trained resources is a huge challenge and we have to invest in capacity building at all levels including training medical professionals starting with their college as well as IT resources.

(e) Unless the AI solution / module get properly integrated with the current healthcare systems, it will not be easily adopted by clinicians. So AI should be a part of the clinician workflow, ‘Day-in-the-life-of’, instead of being a stand-alone solution.

(f) Last but not the least, the investment required is always a barrier which needs to be taken into consideration. But with time, AI solutions will become more affordable so that the investment required, will justify with the benefits it will bring.

In your opinion, what are the key benefits AI can bring to healthcare, particularly in patient care and

what will be the outcomes?
AI can be adopted in healthcare in almost every aspect, starting with mundane and routine administrative tasks all the way to complicated Surgeries. So RPA (Robotic Process Automation) tools can help with some common administrative tasks, while Robot assisted surgeries allows you precise control and enable surgeons to perform complex surgeries, which were always thought to be very risky. AI can also be used for Precision Medicine, where starting with the early detection of Diagnosis, to treatment planning options and then all the way to Prognosis, it can be a great assistant to clinician. Use of AI in clinical research is already bearing fruit, and the use of AR / VR (Augmented and Virtual Reality) for Training and Education is already proven. With the advancement of Image and Speech recognition, AI has become a great tool for Physician to make their job easier and efficient.

In your view, how should we implement AI tools to enhance early disease detection, and how can we measure their effectiveness?
AI tools to enhance early disease detection should be a well thought exercise and one should not jump into making any quick decision. The reason for this is that most of the AI tools have been trained using patient data which does not represent Indian population (and it has been proven that South Asian are more prone for having Cardio related issues compared to their counterparts in the West). So it’s extremely important that we understand the Cohorts used and ensure that there is no bias in the AI tool, before implementing the same. On the same hand, there are some proven AI tools, especially when it relates to the Image recognition which can be a good asset to rely on, in the area of Radiology and Pathology for early disease detection.