India's Apollo Hospitals bets on AI to tackle staff workload
HYDERABAD, March 13 (Reuters) - India's Apollo Hospitals (APLH.NS), opens new tab will invest more in artificial intelligence tools to ease the workload for its doctors and nurses by automating routine tasks, including medical documentation, a top executive told Reuters.
Indian hospitals, which grapple with overworked doctors and nurses handling heavy patient loads, are increasingly using AI to boost diagnostic accuracy, predict patients' risk of complications, improve precision in robotic surgeries, provide virtual medical care, and streamline hospital operations.
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Apollo, which has more than 10,000 beds across its hospital network, making it one of the largest in the country, set aside 3.5% of its digital spend on AI over the past two years and plans to increase it this year, Joint Managing Director Sangita Reddy said, without providing further details.
"Our aim is to free up two to three hours of time daily for doctors and nurses with AI interventions," Reddy said in an interview last month.
Apollo's AI tools, some of which are experimental and still in the initial stages, will analyse patients' electronic medical records to suggest diagnoses, tests and treatment. They will help transcribe doctors' observations, generate faster discharge summaries and create daily schedules out of nurses' notes.
The Chennai-based hospital chain is also working on an AI tool that will help clinicians prescribe the most effective antibiotic suitable to treat the illness.
Apollo, which aims to expand bed capacity by one-third in four years, will direct a part of the revenue from the additions towards boosting AI use without burdening costs, Reddy said.
The hospital hopes that the use of such AI tools will help lower nurses' workload as it tackles a 25% attrition rate among nurses, which it expects to increase to 30% by the end of fiscal 2025.
Other Indian hospitals such as Fortis Healthcare (FOHE.NS), opens new tab, Tata Memorial Hospital, Manipal Hospitals, Narayana Health, Max Healthcare (MAXE.NS), opens new tab, Medanta (MEDN.NS), opens new tab and Aster DM Healthcare (ATRD.NS), opens new tab have also invested in AI-powered tools.
But challenges such as high technology costs, diverse data sources and formats, limited availability of electronic medical records and profitability concerns have made it difficult for them to accelerate AI adoption, according to Joydeep Ghosh, a partner at Deloitte India.
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Gibson amassed 200,000 followers on Instagram when it was still a new social media platform - a large number back then. CANCER CON I was diagnosed with cancer at 19 and then was scammed by con artist Belle Gibson who said she could cure it By Leanne Hall Belle Gibson is the latest fraudster to have a TV show made on how she swindled people out of money by pretending healthy eating and green juices cured her brain cancer. However, it soon became clear that Belle's natural remedies didn't work and that she never even had cancer to begin with. Starting as a blogger in 2009, Belle claimed she was diagnosed with "malignant brain cancer" and given "six to eight months" to live. However, Belle said she had chosen to withdraw from chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment, and instead embarked on "a quest to heal myself naturally… through nutrition, patience, determination and love". 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From there, she also published a cookbook and raked in $400,000 Australian dollars, pledging to donate a share to charity. In 2015, Gibson was exposed by journalists as a fraudster who lied about her medical records and diagnosis. A federal court ordered her to pay a $410,000 fine plus $30,000 in legal costs for misleading and deceptive conduct - a fine she hasn't paid. Her money-grabbing lies went on to inspire many documentaries. What's worse is that she is only one of a growing list of young, attractive and seemingly inspirational women who fake serious illnesses to make money. Sometimes the families themselves are in on the lie - as with the case of British teenager Megan Bhari. Not only were donors conned out of around £400,000, but they duped celebrities including Louis Tomlinson, Taylor Swift, even winning an award from Prime Minister David Cameron. 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Her charity was dissolved after a probe found nearly £400,000 missing from its books. Police did investigate the complaints but said that there was insufficient evidence to take the matter any further. Do you know more? Email 10 The story of the world's most devious con-woman Belle Gibson and how her fraudulent business was finally uncovered was made into a Netflix series
