AI in Healthcare: Niti Aayog's Dr VK Paul stresses co-creation

Niti Aayog's Dr VK Paul urged AI innovators to co-create with health experts, stressing that validation and regulatory compliance are essential. He assured that any validated tools would be absorbed into the national health system.

Niti Aayog member Dr VK Paul on Monday urged innovators in the healthcare sector to co-create artificial intelligence (AI) solutions with medical and public health experts, stressing that validation and regulatory compliance are essential for adoption within the health system.

Co-Creation and Validation Essential

Addressing a session at the AI Impact Summit in the national capital, Paul said that innovators must frequently collaborate with health technical partners, including clinicians, biomedical scientists, microbiologists, clinical researchers, public health experts, pathologists and radiologists. "I want to give a message here. My first request to those who wish to innovate, please co-create with health technical partner very often. And I review this, whoever sends me, or I come across a product, AI product, I say, to make a presentation. There is something known as sensitivity, specificity, at least today, we are using those matrices. Tomorrow, we may not. It may be a clinician, it could be a biomedical scientist, it may be a microbiologist. It could be a clinical researcher, clinical trial person, or a public health person, and so on and so forth. Please, a pathologist, radiologist, done the right thing," Dr VK Paul said.

He emphasised that healthcare innovation should not happen in isolation and must align with existing legal and regulatory frameworks. According to him, the goal is to build a culture of responsible adoption rather than innovation without oversight.

A Culture of Responsible Adoption

Paul further stated that any validated tools presented to the authorities would be absorbed into the system after undergoing due assessment. "We wish to work in the direction, use it by the law, we want a culture of adoption. I already stated, whatever is validated, and give me those five tools that are validated, we'll absorb into the system. We'll take them through the health technology assessment, make it available as a public good," he said.

Focus on Real-World Impact

Meanwhile, the Counsellor for Health, Welfare and Sport at the Embassy of the Netherlands, Nico Schiettekatte, explained that innovation should not only focus on developing technologies in a human-centred way but also on how they are deployed and used to solve real problems. According to him, it is crucial to evaluate whether technological interventions actually improve outcomes for the people they are intended to serve. "We're just researching for humans, but this time, we're looking at the impacts, and that's what we need to do. So if we apply these technologies for schools, are the students learning? If we apply it for health, are the patients recovering better? Therefore, I feel this is the real question we are now to answer. It's not about only how do we develop these technologies in a more human based approach, but also how do we deploy it and how we use it to solve our problems," he said.

Ethical Use and Professional Supervision Key

Dr Harsh Mahajan, Radiologist and Founder and Managing Director of Mahajan Imaging, who was also part of the panel discussion, stressed that artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare can be highly beneficial, but only when used ethically and under the supervision of trained healthcare professionals. He cautioned against laypeople entering personal health data into platforms like ChatGPT for self-diagnosis, describing it as potentially risky. "I feel, and I make this statement very responsibly, that if used ethically, if used properly, AI in healthcare can only be beneficial, especially if used under supervision of healthcare professionals and not by lay public at large, where they feed their data into ChatGPT or whatever, and try to figure out what's happening," Mahajan said.

AI Already in Modern Medical Equipment

He further noted that modern medical equipment, including CT, MRI, and ultrasound machines, already incorporates AI. This technology helps reduce radiation exposure in CT scans, produce faster and higher-quality scans in MRI and ultrasound, and automatically recognise lesions and other abnormalities. "So that's very important, then, as has already been said, that you know already, our CT MRI ultrasound equipments have AI inside, those reduction of radiation on CT scans, faster, higher quality scans on MRI and ultrasound, and actually automatic recognition of lesions," said Mahajan.

The India AI Impact Summit is a five-day programme anchored in three foundational pillars, or "Sutras": People, Planet, and Progress. (ANI)

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