India’s health sector is building an interconnected, patient-centric model with GenAI solutions, ET HealthWorld
Mumbai: Mohit Sood, Regional Managing Principal at ZS, interacted with ETHealthworld’s Prabhat Prakash about how India is utilising artificial intelligence (AI) and GenAI to address gaps in health delivery. He emphasiz=sed the need for a robust digital solution and a connected data ecosystem with AI to enhance healthcare accessibility and equity. Below are edited excerpts from their conversation.
How can India position itself as a global tech leader in innovation? Please share some examples of Indian tech innovations making a global impact?
India has gradually emerged as a global hub for technology innovation, driven by a skilled workforce, cost competitiveness, and positive ecosystems for GCCs and startups. The healthcare sector is already building an interconnected, patient-centric model, with numerous healthcare and life sciences firms implementing GenAI solutions. GenAI is increasingly woven into healthcare operations, enhancing outcomes for all. While interest in GenAI tools for R&D is significant, classical AI and GenAI are also finding critical use cases in drug discovery and development. Historically, AI has played a role in clinical trial planning, execution, and research, gradually being adopted at all levels. In the Indian pharma industry, AI holds potential for improving disease prevention and early diagnosis. The National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) aims to facilitate digital solutions for universal access to healthcare.
How are you implementing AI, analytics, and data science, and how are they critical to your operations? How are these technologies driving business transformation and decision-making?
We leverage our cutting-edge foundation in analytics and technology, combined with data, science, and products, to help our clients make intelligent decisions and deliver innovative solutions. By incorporating GenAI into analytics for drug development and brand planning, we have reduced effort and time by over 30 per cent, speeding up execution.
Our latest GenAI innovation, Max.AI, accelerates multiple enterprise use cases with AI agents. These agents allow for easy setup and deployment within 2-4 weeks, rapid building and monitoring, with support from experts in engineering, AI, and customer success. We incorporate insights from other sectors, market research, and competitive intelligence to enhance programs for healthcare and pharma industries.
How is GenAI transforming operations within various industries? How are you leveraging GenAI to enhance efficiency and innovation?
Businesses across sectors are recognizing AI’s pivotal role in enabling innovative solutions to optimize efficiency. AI’s various forms, including multimodal, generative, and predictive, have the potential to streamline all aspects of business. We leverage advanced AI technology and innovations to solve complex problems in finance, retail, telecommunications, travel, and hospitality.
In life sciences, we apply AI products and platforms to optimize clinical trials, facilitating easier identification of appropriate patient pools, forecasting treatment progression, and anticipating patient journeys with specific milestones. GenAI has transformed our operations, enabling unique solutions for knowledge sharing, social learning, and creative experimentation within the organization. For instance, our GenAI Jam Week celebrates innovation through leadership sessions, workshops, and hackathons, creating a platform for us to explore flagship AI applications and their real-world applications.
What are the challenges in integrating diverse technologies into a cohesive data ecosystem?
Healthcare and life sciences firms face multiple technological challenges when adopting and implementing advanced AI and data ecosystem solutions. One common challenge is fragmented data sources. The complexity of sourcing data and ensuring data quality leads to difficulties in understanding and managing interdependencies, increasing redundancies, and the existence of silos in India.
We believe that gaining a more integrated view of the pharma, life sciences, and healthcare industry will facilitate coordinated patient care and lead to impactful research beyond the great work already undertaken in the sector.
What are the components essential to building a robust connected data ecosystem?
Integrating data creates a unified system that enhances communication and collaboration among all parties. Such a cohesive approach is essential for healthcare providers to obtain a holistic view of all patients, combining relevant data to deliver precise and personalized care.
Building a robust connected data ecosystem requires data standardization. Rigorous data quality checks and harmonization are necessary to ensure easier linking across disease codes, product codes, doctor codes, and names. This is where data management plays a crucial role at two layers of security: creating a highly secure platform and understanding who has access and visibility into the data, with appropriate checks in place.
How is healthcare being made more equitable and accessible with digital solutions and AI?
In the Indian healthcare market, limited resources and lack of access to technology are significant concerns. However, increasing innovation has enabled the development of tools that overcome these challenges. New AI solutions have the potential to improve disease prevention and early diagnosis, addressing the lack of healthcare resources in India.
We place health equity at the heart of our business, believing it is key to improving the healthcare ecosystem. We aim to understand and address the social drivers of health, bringing together healthcare stakeholders to tackle inequities. As a commitment to this cause, we joined over 40 organizations in signing the World Economic Forum’s Zero Health Gaps Pledge and the Healthcare Leadership Council’s pledge to advance health equity.
We continue to partner with healthcare players to improve patient experiences and broaden access to care. Our solutions—from patient and consumer health to clinical development, AI, and multichannel marketing—are influencing systemic change.
How can the national response to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) be enhanced collectively through technology? How can public-private partnerships leverage technology for national healthcare initiatives?
Technological advancements have transformed the detection and treatment of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), with AI playing a role in analyzing data, identifying patterns, and predicting potential NCD risks. While government and private entities have been striving independently to build defenses against NCDs, the World Health Organization (WHO) proposed that collaboration with the private sector can enhance the effectiveness of healthcare initiatives.
Through public-private partnerships, technological support can facilitate the adoption of tools such as electronic health records (EHRs). EHRs streamline patient data management, making shared information more accessible, enhancing care coordination, and enabling informed treatment decisions. Advanced tools, such as AI-driven cardiac risk scores, can be developed based on comprehensive Indian demographic data, providing tailored risk predictions that match individuals’ unique health profiles.
