D Nageshwar Reddy, Chairman of AIG Hospitals, has inaugurated the Centre for Digital Technologies in Healthcare (CDiTH) at the International Institute of Information Technology (Hyderabad). The new centre at the institute would work together to develop healthcare solutions using artificial intelligence and digital technologies.
P J. Narayanan, Director of IIIT-H said that the new centre would apply modern digital technologies to develop some immediate healthcare challenges.
“We will effectively bridge academic research and clinical practice,” he said, earlier addressing a gathering.
Earlier, Nageshwar Reddy delivered a lecture on ‘AI & Healthcare – Opportunities and Challenges – Why Doctors Don’t Like Artificial Intelligence (AI)’ to mark the 101st birth anniversary of F C Kohli, who is considered to be the father of the Indian IT industry.
The IIIT-H had established the Kohli Centre on Intelligent Systems (KCIS) to conduct research in advanced technological solutions.
He said that AI will not replace doctors, but doctors who know AI will replace the doctors who don’t know AI.
“Like many Doctors, I too didn’t like AI, I had a lot of apprehension about it because I thought it would be only effective after five or six years and by then I would retire,” he said.
“Because AI is too complicated, I felt it was not to be used in my lifetime. But, I have realised in the past couple of years the importance of AI,” he said.
Reddy gave many examples of AI applications in the medical field and how it was going to benefit doctors, hospitals and patients. He also flagged several challenges in using AI in medical treatments and the need for a robust cybersecurity framework to protect patient data.
“AI in colonoscopy can improve polyp detection and it is much more effective and better than a human eye can detect. The human body comprises 30 trillion human cells, 39 trillion microbial cells 20,000 human genes and 20 million microbial genes. AI helps in studying thousands of bacteria,” he said.
