Two Indian College Students Develop AI To Diagnose Patients

Healthcare is considered an issue in India, not only because poor people can’t afford it but also because it’s even hard to find a hospital or a doctor in remote rural areas. At the HackerEarth’s NEC India Hackathon 2019, Raghav Jain and Shivanshu Mathur, two students who study at Lovely Professional University, majoring in Computer Science Engineering, won the 2^nd price. A prize of Rs 1.5 lakh was given to the pair for their AI-powered Medikare software. If the pair could perfect it, it could revolutionize rural India’s public healthcare.

Medikare is an AI-powered software that can replace a doctor to diagnose patients. By using machine learning algorithms, it can analyse a patient’s symptoms and medical tests’ reports to find out what kind of illnesses that the patient has. It is basically an automated diagnostician for when there is no doctor around.

In remote areas where there is a lack of doctors, this could provide some support to people who need medical attention. However, the system would still require a trained person who knows how to operate it. But compared to having a trained doctor, this is something easier to do.

Even in places where there are doctors, Medikare can still offer assistance. Especially if there is only one doctor who needs to take care of a few hundred patients, the system could speed up the diagnosing process. Thus the doctor can prescribe treatments while the patients don’t have to wait for days until it is their turn.

Shivanshu Mathur said:

Jain and Mathur were two of 731 students from top universities in India to take part in this Hackathon. In the final round, the teams needed to work on building a prototype that could actually work.

Raghav Jain said: