India's Apollo Hospitals bets on AI to tackle staff workload

FILE PHOTO: India’s Apollo Hospitals volition put much successful AI tools to easiness the workload for its doctors and nurses by automating regular tasks. | Photo Credit: Reuters

India's Apollo Hospitals volition put much successful artificial quality tools to easiness the workload for its doctors and nurses by automating regular tasks, including aesculapian documentation, a apical enforcement told Reuters.

Indian hospitals, which grapple with overworked doctors and nurses handling dense diligent loads, are progressively utilizing AI to boost diagnostic accuracy, foretell patients' hazard of complications, amended precision successful robotic surgeries, supply virtual aesculapian care, and streamline infirmary operations.

Apollo, which has much than 10,000 beds crossed its infirmary network, making it 1 of the largest successful the country, acceptable speech 3.5% of its integer walk connected AI implicit the past 2 years and plans to summation it this year, Joint Managing Director Sangita Reddy said, without providing further details.

"Our purpose is to escaped up 2 to 3 hours of clip regular for doctors and nurses with AI interventions," Reddy said successful an interrogation past month.

Apollo's AI tools, immoderate of which are experimental and inactive successful the archetypal stages, volition analyse patients' physics aesculapian records to suggest diagnoses, tests and treatment. They volition assistance transcribe doctors' observations, make faster discharge summaries and make regular schedules retired of nurses' notes.

The Chennai-based infirmary concatenation is besides moving connected an AI instrumentality that volition assistance clinicians prescribe the astir effectual antibiotic suitable to dainty the illness.

Apollo, which aims to grow furniture capableness by one-third successful 4 years, volition nonstop a portion of the gross from the additions towards boosting AI usage without burdening costs, Reddy said.

The infirmary hopes that the usage of specified AI tools volition assistance little nurses' workload arsenic it tackles a 25% attrition complaint among nurses, which it expects to summation to 30% by the extremity of fiscal 2025.

Other Indian hospitals specified arsenic Fortis Healthcare, Tata Memorial Hospital, Manipal Hospitals, Narayana Health, Max Healthcare, Medanta and Aster DM Healthcare person besides invested successful AI-powered tools.

But challenges specified arsenic precocious exertion costs, divers information sources and formats, constricted availability of physics aesculapian records and profitability concerns person made it hard for them to accelerate AI adoption, according to Joydeep Ghosh, a spouse astatine Deloitte India.

Published - March 14, 2025 10:25 americium IST