Shri Apurva Chandra, Union Health Secretary leading the Indian delegation, met with Dr. Karen DeSalvo, Google's Chief Health Officer, at a side event of the 77th World Health Assembly in Geneva. The meeting aimed to enhance the ongoing collaboration between Google Research and the Union Health Ministry to make digital health tools more accessible.

The Union Health Secretary commended the current partnership and emphasized the potential for further collaboration, particularly in artificial intelligence. He sought Google's support for the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) by developing more digital health tools like the Automated Retinal Disease Assessment (ARDA) and integrating them with ABDM. Additionally, he requested Google's assistance in promoting ABDM awareness among students and startups.

The google team highlighted the existing engagement of Google Research with India’s National Health Authority (NHA). Google Research has been engaged with NHA since 2022, when Google’s AI model for diabetic retinopathy screening (ARDA) was listed on ABDM’s website under the Open Call for Expression of Interest (EoI) for creating digital health ecosystem for India. Google Research and NHA have also been working on development of an open-sourced ABDM wrapper to simplify ABDM sandbox integration process.

Other attendees included Ms Hekali Zhimomi, Additional Secretary of the Union Health Ministry; Ms Aradhana Patnaik, Additional Secretary and Managing Director (NHM) of the Union Health Ministry; and Dr Basant Garg, Additional CEO of the National Health Authority.

Source: PIB

Image source: COPILOT