Pneumonia has always been a grievous health challenge in India. It accounts for an exceptional number of hospitalisations and deaths, especially in rural regions and areas deprived of healthcare resources. Diagnosis mostly depends on the clinical assessment and radiological findings from chest X-rays, which can be time-consuming and lead to interpretation mistakes.   

The disease demanded a faster and more accurate diagnostic approach like integrating Artificial Intelligence to combat the infection as early detection and accurate diagnosis have become challenging to treat this infectious disease more effectively. This attempt has already revolutionised Indian healthcare.   

The start of these revolutions can be traced to various governmental initiatives for the past few years. For example, the draft National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence emphasises the increased improvement in technology insights from innovators, offering an opportunity to rectify a few long-standing obstacles in providing proper healthcare to Indian citizens on a large scale.   

National Digital Health Infrastructure  

As per the policy documents for National Health Stack (2018), the government is also attempting to build a national digital health infrastructure. The significant feature of this digital infrastructure includes:  

• Health Lockers, an electronic national health registry and cloud-based data storage system that would serve as a single source of health data for the nation.   
• Personal Health Records, a framework which enables data to be accessible for both citizens and medical researchers.   
• A coverage and claims platform that can support large health protection schemes,   
• A national health analytics platform and a unique digital health ID for each citizen.   

AI-based Pneumonia detection  

Integrating AI into the Pneumonia detection process has tremendous potential, especially in identifying causes and preventive measures such as vaccination and improving the diagnostic process and response assessment to the treatment. Using machine learning algorithms trained on vast chest X-rays and CT scans, datasets can quickly analyse the images and spot the anomalies associated with pneumonia. Such algorithms can recognise the subtle abnormalities indicating the disease that human observers might overlook. The AI-based diagnosis provides speed and accuracy, streamlining the process by enabling immediate treatment initiation and reducing the risk of complications.   

Accessibility   

The ability to bridge the healthcare accessibility gap between urban and rural areas is one of the significant advantages of AI-powered pneumonia detection. As India’s rural regions still struggle with minimal medical facilities, this cost-effective solution, with portable X-ray machines and AI-powered diagnostic tools available, is a boon. Healthcare workers in rural areas can easily take chest X-rays and transmit the images to a centralised AI system for fast and detailed analysis. Such decentralised pneumonia diagnosis can help underserved communities to get better healthcare services on time. Besides diagnostic accuracy, it also helps optimise resource utilisation in the healthcare sector.   

Challenges  

Besides offering a wide range of benefits, integrating AI into pneumonia detection poses challenges and ethical considerations. Hospitals and other healthcare institutions need to safeguard patient data with utmost care and comply with robust regulations, as data privacy and security are at risk and of paramount importance.   

Furthermore, the imbalanced datasets and inadequate training methods lead to biases in AI algorithms. This increases the need to address the potential biases in AI algorithms. AI is still in its early deployment stage, especially in clinical interventions. Still, most of the identified use cases are in their development stage. In contrast, most current use cases take the form of decision support systems followed by process optimisation and virtual assistants. Leveraging the power of AI to the fullest can help health providers save lives and enhance better healthcare outcomes when combating infectious diseases like pneumonia.

• https://www.financialexpress.com/business/digital-transformation-ai-powered-pneumonia-detection-revolutionises-healthcare-in-india-3272225/#tbl-em-lnwzfhw1upjkdfq5bc
• Photo by CDC on Unsplash