Kolkata hospitals take AI route to improve clinical services, digitally boost administrative ops

KOLKATA: Several hospitals in the city are shifting a significant part of their clinical services to AI platforms, while administrative operations will be entirely digitised across several facilities by the end of April. Hospital heads feel this would bring about a major transformation in the way private hospitals operate.

While several hospitals have started using AI to enhance patient care and ensure round-the-clock real-time monitoring, others are set to introduce WhatsApp-enabled telemedicine support for quick consultations and automated OPD slot booking and discharge systems to reduce waiting time for appointments and during release.
Charnock Hospital has launched an 'enhanced patient care system', which equips every bed with a "contactless and continuous monitoring" by an AI-powered remote-screening mechanism and early warning system (EWS). This EWS enables healthcare workers to remotely monitor patients' vital parameters, such as heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure, SPO2 levels, temperature and ECG. The system screens these parameters round the clock, tracking trends and issuing real-time alerts to health workers, enabling quick intervention.
"Through EWS, our health workers are now armed with an AI-powered system to monitor each patient and detect clinical deterioration, enabling timely intervention and prevention of emergencies," said Charnock emergency head Nishant Agarwal. Agarwal added that 60% of the ward beds and cabins were now AI-enabled. "We have formed a rapid response team to react to these alerts. It's been working efficiently and we plan to bring all non-ICU beds under AI alert coverage," he said.
'AI transforming patient care at hospitals'
Woodlands Hospital is digitising its operations, which includes AI use to track patients' parameters and introduction of online OPD bookings and payments that will eliminate queues at counters. "We plan to shift our entire operation to an integrated digital platform that will make everything faster and paperless. Patients will be able to book OPD slots online and make payments. Screening of patients will be done real-time via AI. We hope to launch the system by April-end," Barua said.
Manipal Hospitals has been using Hospital Information Systems (HIS) across network hospitals. "We have integrated AI-enabled picture archiving and communication system (PACS) in collaboration with Fuji Film, to boost diagnostic efficiency. We pioneered India's first AI-powered nurse handover project on Gemini AI platform and introduced an AI-enabled step-down system for ICUs," said Karthik Rajagopal, the COO.
In Kolkata, Manipal plans to introduce tech-enabled transformations. "These are a few of the many initiatives that are in the pilot stage at our hospitals. About administrative digitization, we have streamlined processes like admissions, OPD appointments and discharge tvia enhanced digital solutions with HIS," Rajagopal added.
AI is transforming patient care by enabling early detection and prevention through ECG-based predictions, ensuring timely interventions for heart health at Narayana Hospitals units. "Our AI-driven programme helps clinicians by suggesting the right treatment, improving outcomes. AI-powered ITU monitoring tracks critical patients, predicting risks and giving real-time insights," said R Venkatesh, Narayana Health COO.