AI solutions for rural health care

AI has been used in the rural areas in China to allow patients to enjoy convenient, unified health monitoring and services, health officials told a medical forum discussing changing health care in China.

The forum, which was co-organized by Jiahui Health and NEJM Catalyst associated with The New England Journal of Medicine, invited health officials, specialist and industry insiders from home and abroad to discuss the challenges and solutions to health care in China.

In China, about 95 percent of health care is delivered within the government system and it is urgent that the system is reshaped with more digital solutions such as apps, telehealth and artificial intelligence in order to narrow the gap between patients and providers and expand provision, said Ge Feng, CEO of Jiahui Health, a foreign-funded health care group based in Shanghai.

“In China, there is a strong need for AI and telehealth because of urgent capacity issues; we simply don’t have enough doctors to meet the rising demands of an aging population of some 1.3 billion. I believe technology can help circumvent that reality,” he said.

Officials said a program in Jinde County, Anhui Province, has made the first trial of AI in primary health-care system. About 150,000 people from 68 villages in 10 towns participated in the program by using wearable life-monitoring equipment for long-distance inspection and diagnosis. Some 1,800 patients received long-distance services through the medical robot system.