Startups develop AI tech to combat Covid

Mumbai To combat deadly Covid-19 pandemic effectively, several startups are developed new technologies and tapping existing technologies.

For instance, health-tech startup Qure.ai on Thursday collaborated with the international NGO PATH to accelerate and intensify Covid-19 screening by making advanced Artificial Intelligence-based diagnostic technology available to physicians across India through the Telegram App.

Qure's CE-certified and World Health Organization-endorsed AI solution can read and interpret chest X-ray to detect findings indicative of Covid-19 as well as quantify the proportion of lungs affected due to the lesions. The technology which is being used by the Mumbai municipal corporation and super-specialty hospitals across the globe, is now available to physicians on the Telegram app.

Qure's AI bot would enable clinicians to triage for Covid-19 instantaneously. Physicians would only have to download the Qure bot from the Telegram app, upload the patient's chest X-rays either as DICOMs images or as images taken by the smartphone camera.A

The result would be available in less than a minute and would serve as a second opinion or confirmation of diagnosis.

"What we've been seeing in the last few weeks is truly taking a toll on our frontline caregivers and straining our public and private healthcare infrastructure severely. We need to implement and leverage technology that's been extensively trained and validated to tackle this ongoing tragedy fast and it needs to be now," said Prashant Warier, CEO and co-founder of Qure.ai, in a statement.

Bengaluru-based Dozee has launched the MillionICU initiative to address the massive shortage of ICU beds and staff in public hospitals. The initiative will raise funds to upgrade normal beds in government hospitals across India into Step-Down ICUs, using Dozee's contactless sensor, in under five minutes and enable remote and central monitoring of patients at ward level.

The company aims to install 50,000 step-down ICU beds across India in the next six months and will take it to one million in the next three years. The initiative has already benefited 25 such hospitals across 15 districts with more than 10,000 patients being monitored and having saved over 25,000 nursing hours.

"One of the major challenges the Indian health care system is facing is shortage of nurses, doctors and ICU beds. Technologies such as remote patient monitoring and AI can help doctors and nurses save valuable hours by prioritising patients based on their needs," said Mudit Dandwate, CEO and Cofounder, Dozee, in a statement on Thursday.

"The MillionICU campaign is an effort to combat the current situation by providing much needed support to government hospitals in the country. By converting ward beds into step-down ICUs, we aim at upgrading the healthcare infrastructure thereby enabling improved patient outcomes while significantly reducing the load on nurses and doctors," he added.

Dozee will also be setting up a 24x7 central monitoring cell which will enable healthcare staff to monitor multiple patients remotely who were previously monitored manually only every couple of hours.