Aster hospitals, IISc open AI lab, to work on neurology and stroke detection use cases

Bengaluru-based hospital chain Aster CMI has partnered with the Indian Institute of Science to open an Artificial Intelligence lab at the IISc campus. The lab will help to build AI products in the healthcare domain and train healthcare professionals in the field of AI, so as to bridge the gap between clinical medicine and technology.  

“With the use of AI, doctors and medical providers will now be able to deliver more accurate diagnosis in the fastest possible time which can aid the treatment journey. Also, AI would be a big leap towards predictive and proactive data analytics which will improve preventive care recommendations for patients,” said Dr. Azad Moopen, Managing Director, Aster DM Healthcare.  

Moopen added that the AI lab would help healthcare professionals undertake research activities to better understand AI, and also understand patient’s disease patterns, thereby improving treatment outcomes.  

Talking about the future scope of the lab, Dr. Lokesh B, Consultant Neurology, Aster CMI Hospital, said that exchange of personnel, and joint workshops would be conducted to make AI in medicine more effective.  

“The broad spectrum of digital medicine, especially to enable the 4P model of medicine (Predictive, Preventive, Personalised, and Participatory) involves natural collaboration between academic institutions and medical institutions,” said Dr. Phaneendra K Yalavarthy, Professor of Medical Imaging, Department of Computational and Data Sciences, IISc.  

The lab will initially focus on case studies on neurology, and will later expand to other clinical specialities. One of the first use cases will be on “automatic Acute Stroke Symptom Detection using Mobile Health Technologies” along with audio analytics in neurological disorders. Another important use case is how to develop deep learning algorithms to track and segment nerves in Ultrasound images.