Advancing technological concepts has always benefited the healthcare sector from the development of tech solutions for antidotes of fatal diseases to collaboration of tech for health sector infrastructure such as ventilators among others, gives a clear idea of how interdependent the two sectors, health and tech are.
Having said that, there have been talks about incorporating AI extensively in healthcare and for building programs that can combine the two disciplinaries in one course.
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AIIMS Bhubaneswar has recently signed a MoU with IIT Bhubaneswar on Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the primary motive of collaborating on areas of health and technology where the two national institutes will be developing disease and outbreak prediction models.
The two entities have decided to engage in developing research on “Artificial Intelligence and data analytics, Biomedical engineering and technology, Disease prediction modelling, Digital health, development of tools, equipment and strategies for diagnostic and therapeutic use.”
“This endeavour will aid in finding solutions to the current challenges in the public health and patient treatment in the region. Application of cutting-edge technology into health care will have immense translational value in diagnosis and treatment of diseases,” stated AIIMS Bhubaneswar’s Executive Director, Dr. Ashutosh Biswas.
Dr. Biswas added that AI will be incorporated in “health disorders, material development, app development, wearable sensor development, image based diagnostics, data sciences enabled smart health monitoring system, and early warning systems among others,” as per reports.
On the other hand, IIT Bhubaneswar Director Shreepad Karmalkar spoke on how the institute is building dedicated laboratory for biomedical signal processing, advanced characterization, detector fabrication for imaging, additive manufacturing for designed materials, bio tracker and biosensor development for mental health care called the ‘Center for Biomedical Engineering and Technology’.
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In addition, the two national institutes are working on having student exchange programmes and reorientation of training courses that will focus on merging technology and healthcare in academic programmes involving facility development and explore the use of advanced medical equipment for Artificial Intelligence enabled patient care services.
The programmes can be expected to be Joint Academic Programmes which will consist of short summer courses for MBBS and BTech Students. Moreover, research dissertation and Thesis work for Doctoral (PHD/MTech) Students. Patenting, product development, technology transfer, and Industry collaboration are a few more elements of the partnership.
We can expect the AI technology to take the healthcare domain on a higher pedestal while boosting the efficiency of the prevailing technology and in turn developing programmes where the concept can be studied vastly. Let us know what you think about the collaboration at editor@digit.in.