Changing the Face of Healthcare in India: The AI and Telemedicine Era

According to the Census of India, over 65% of the population lives in rural areas where healthcare infrastructure is weak. India allocated ₹89,155 crore ($11 billion) to health for its 2024 budget after hiking by 12% of that in the previous year. Artificial intelligence is transforming the healthcare sector in India quickly, supporting better diagnostics and treatment and providing access to clinical care through improved diagnosis, especially to the underprivileged people living in rural areas.

In turn, the amalgamation of AI with telemedicine has revolutionised the course of health care to be more accessible, efficient, and touchingly deep by reaching all nooks and corners, even in rural areas and communities. The story goes back to a professional thought by an Amrita University professor, who happens to be a pioneer in AI healthcare, education, and other public services. From training doctors to teach the practice of AI to working with telemedicine solutions in rural India, this work is changing the face of healthcare.

Evolution of AI in healthcare

India's AI healthcare industry is estimated to develop considerably, reaching $7.8 billion by 2025 at a 40.2% CAGR over 2020. With the growing use of AI-powered diagnostic tools and telemedicine services, the potential for improved healthcare outcomes is enormous.

Bijlani began his incredibly rich AI experience more than 25 years ago when he pursued his Master's degree in the United States, where he researched AI and worked as an AI engineer at institutions such as Stanford and MIT. The vast experience laid a solid base for his work in India, especially his focus on integrating AI into healthcare and education.

In 2010, he launched a massive venture called AVIU with the Indian government, which provided video conferencing to over 10,000 colleges and universities. This software was widely used by all top institutes, like IITs, in reaching colleges all over the country for nearly a decade. Ample, an e-learning platform focused on competency-based, outcome-driven education, was another success followed, which is now a critical component of healthcare AI education.

Another concern the professor has for rural India is the healthcare disparity between urban and rural India. Among the population in rural India, there exist some doctors and health care professionals due to the low population there, which poses a challenge to ease access to proper care of the population. The answer lies in telemedicine.

"It is very difficult to make doctors go to rural places where they can earn lesser amounts," he explained. Professors described a two-tiered clinic system to transcend the problem. The first type of clinic has a care centre with minimum infrastructure and digital tools such as mobile phones using local workers, such as ASHA workers, providing telemedicine services. The second, of larger-scale clinics, have better-trained staff and more sophisticated medical gear. This model is meant to reach health care as close as possible to the rural population. Telemedicine creates access to medical doctors for this purpose.

The Power of AI in Medical Training

The integration of AI in healthcare offers promising solutions to long-standing challenges, such as the shortage of doctors and inadequate healthcare infrastructure.

In the innovations of Amrita Hospital, AI works have been added to the daily practice of doctors. Bijlani said that Amrita Hospital trained thousands of doctors in the AI and machine learning domains, which made it possible to include their diagnostic strengths along with maximised treatment efficiency.

Bijlani emphasised that AI is no longer the domain of technical enthusiasts only. "Doctors now want to learn AI because they find a utility to it. Regular courses in AI are held every month, ranging from short crash courses to more elaborate two-day or three-day workshops,” he said.

He pointed out that AI-powered chatbots, developed with the help of tools like ChatGPT and Meta's Lama, save doctors considerable amounts of time when speaking to patients. "For example, a chatbot could request a series of standardised questions from a patient before a consultation, and the doctor would then spend more time diagnosing and less on collecting information. It saves 30-40% of consultation time," he noted as if to underscore the efficiency that translates into better care. 

Bridging the Gap through Artificial Intelligence for Rural Healthcare

Bijlani clarified that, for such applications of AI in rural areas where technology access is scarcer, it is less about the technology and more about local coordination. Rural clinics will need a "digital medical person" or ASHA worker who has a mobile phone to bridge the gap when it comes to technology. Basic medical instruments measuring vital signs, like blood pressure and temperature, fused with telemedicine would significantly enhance healthcare delivery in these regions.

His team is currently testing these technologies in rural areas near Faridabad for free services to experiment and learn what will work best in these communities. The idea is to bring these projects to the attention of the state and central government and perhaps get broader collaboration and funding from governments. 

Role of AI Tools: ChatGPT vs. Lama

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are revolutionising various industries, including healthcare, education, and customer service. One area Bijlani was very much involved in is the use of AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Meta's Lama, to build specialised AI systems for medical diagnostics. In general, ChatGPT can be used for answering medical questions. According to him, however, Meta's Lama allows the creation of customised "My GPT" systems where one can feed the system to realise its full potential in areas like dermatology, cardiology, or diabetes management. These AI tools are supplied with massive amounts of data: textbooks, PDFs, and medical literature so that the physician can consult expert-level advice and information focused on specific diseases.

For example, Bijlani showed a "Derma GPT" system, wherein doctors can more quickly and precisely diagnose several skin diseases. In addition, the system maintains the patient's history, which enables the doctor to keep track of how diseases progress in time and update the treatment accordingly.

Therefore, for very large-scale deployment, open-source tools like Lama will be valuable, where the cost of subscription to tools like ChatGPT might become more than prohibitive. Lama also offers better data privacy since the medical information might be hosted on private servers rather than third-party platforms.

Innovation in AI-Medical Devices

Integration of artificial intelligence does not only stop at software. The group at Amrita Hospital is also devising AI-driven medical devices to improve healthcare services. Bijlani spoke of AI-powered diagnostic assistants, wherein doctors get their work done by analysing patient history and symptoms regarding diseases like diabetes and heart conditions. They are collaborating closely with ministries such as India's Department of Science and Technology (DST) to develop AI-powered devices, such as using drones to deliver medicines to inaccessible areas or improving diagnosis through stethoscopes in a million ways. 

Being 25 years old, the hospital in Kochi has accumulated voluminous data from patients that have been helpful in training AI systems in the medical field, said Bijlani. From that ample database, they can develop AI models that are not only spot on but could be used in various fields of medicine, from cardiology to dermatology. 

The Future of Health Care

According to reports from NASSCOM, the healthcare AI market in India is expected to grow to $1.5 billion by 2025, primarily driven by advancements in telemedicine and AI-powered diagnostics. This growth reflects the increasing adoption of AI in areas like predictive analytics, disease diagnosis, and patient management. The adoption is fuelled by both public and private healthcare investments, along with initiatives to expand healthcare access using AI technologies.

Bijlani stated the enormous potential that AI has on every front to transform health care. Telemedicine for rural clinics and in diagnostic contexts helped to have actual AI-assisted diagnostics, along with the possibility of having more customised medical GPTs.

"AI in health care is not a future dream; it's already here. I would like to see a future in which even the remotest village in India would be able to access world-class health care through AI and telemedicine," he added.

The rapidly changing interaction of telemedicine and AI is changing the entire landscape of healthcare in India as quality care reaches even the most remote parts of the country. Bijlani and his team are actively part of an innovative project and collaboration with the visionary leader at Amrita University, leading the way toward an even more inclusive and efficient system of healthcare for all people.

Musharrat Shahin

BW Reporters The author is working as correspondent with BW CIO