March 20, 2019 3 min read

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India has two contrast images when it comes to the healthcare sector. While one faction is able to avail the advancement of technologies in the healthcare space, another faction can at the most only avail the basic healthcare treatments. But this spectrum is altering now. Starting from making the basic healthcare services available to the needy, several innovative technologies are disrupting the space and taking them to an altogether different standard. The private healthcare sector in close association with startups has been seeing the innovation that has amazed everyone and spend the industry up. The feather in the hat that the sector could earn from its tech innovation is the implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to treat patients suffering from Cancer. The distinguished growth in the healthcare space has made many vouches that this will be one of the most promising segments for 2019.

“Over the course of last few years, we have seen a rise in startups in the healthcare sector. Part of the reason could be the ability to innovate in that sector. It is one of the most promising fields for a startup to scale and meet the needs of populous nations like ours,” says Ajeya Motaganahalli, Senior Director, Engineering and Leader of NetApp Excellerator, NetApp shares his outlook about the sector.

He also points out the several diagnostic tests that are getting carried out through the help of AI led startups. There are Machine Learning and analytics, which are helping hospitals achieve the required level of productivity so that they can service patients better.

Prevention is Better than Cure

‘Cancer’ – a word that startles everyone, needs more attention. Considered to be the most fatal of all diseases, the emergence of AI has got the detection of the disease easier and more streamlined than before.

Talking about AI disrupting the space, Vishwas Mudagal, the CEO of Good work Labs, pertaining to his AI works in the healthcare space says, “We are helping companies to determine how to detect cancer. For Cancer detection, you need an algorithm where you are going to predict if someone is going to have cancer or not. Looking at blood samples you can predict whether certain patients will have cancer in the future or not.” He also believes that this will even get better to a point where Deep Learning will even suggest the diagnosis of the disease.

Simplified Process with Minimum Pocket Pinch

Although the process sounds complicated and exorbitant, digitizing healthcare will actually help to make it more affordable and accessible. Adding to this, India has a disparity in the ratio of doctors to patients. Here AI comes to the forefront and helps to reduce the time that a doctor in the traditional treatment model has to offer to a patient, increasing the scope of treating more number of patients in the same timeframe. Thus, a doctor’s productivity enhances.

AI has the power to enhance skills, Dr Geetha Manjunath, CEO, Niramai points out, “Cities have provisions to offer to the sick. But the rural areas are far behind. There are certain villages, where doctors come once in three months. But there are help workers, who know certain medical aspects but need more skills. Here AI can help them with decision-making skills.” Simplifying it further she says that AI will simplify the process to an extent where the help workers will be shown red, yellow and green lights to determine critically sick, lesser unhealthy and perfectly fine individuals respectively.