Arvind Sivaramakrishnan, CEO of Apollo Hospital, told delegates at HIMSS22 APAC as he contemplated a slide: “This diagram could be better than Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
However, he was not looking at a work of art, but rather data from the case study of a 65-year-old woman who accessed the Pro-Health team’s AI-based preventive health program service. of the hospital.
After following health recommendations to treat diabetes and arthritis for a year, her weight dropped from 79kg to 73kg, and her blood sugar also dropped.
Preventive health approach
In his presentation on “Digital innovation in patient health management and patient communication”, Sivaramakrishnan praised the “beauty” of such results and emphasized the importance of preventive care for the population 1 India’s 4.4 billion people.
He explained: “In India, non-communicable diseases are increasing at a higher rate and are more dangerous than Tsunamis. “When you look at that scale and importance, preventive medicine in an automated, scalable way is absolutely essential.”
By 2021, more than 100,000 patients are enrolled in Apollo Hospital’s Pro-Health preventive health program, which uses enhancement, harmonization, and insight generation to enable early intervention. Over a year, participants saw an overall decrease of 0.7% HbA1c (glycated hemoglobin) and 64% weight loss.
“This shows the scale of digital support in a community with different economic backgrounds, different levels of education, and different levels of literacy,” said Sivaramakrishnan. “This is the practice of evidence-based care, enabled through pathways of care and protocols that are delivered electronically to 100,000 patients. This is the power of healthcare.”
The Pro-Health program uses One Health Record, an AI-powered personalized health risk assessment built on data collected by Apollo Hospitals over 25 years. This provides health scores for cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and risk of hospitalization for infection, based on data regarding local cohorts.
Patients can access an app that delivers personalized healthy habit-forming impulses via SMS or WhatsApp. The app also features a digital diary, an interactive self-reading module, a dashboard with parameter summaries, and a chatbot that can refer to a dedicated health mentor if needed.
Guaranteed accessibility
Sivaramakrishnan emphasized the importance of making the platform accessible and personalized for each individual.
“This is an innovation that can scale and doesn’t have to be like rocket science,” he said.
Usually, when people turn to search engines to research health symptoms, they “get cancer and panic,” says Sivaramakrishnan.
To combat this, he believes people need “a clear, simple explanation of what a parameter means in a language we can all understand.” An example of this is Apollo’s ProHealthDeepX immersive mixed reality experience allows patients to see inside their hearts.
“Health and preventive health are not phased events. It’s a journey,” Sivaramakrishnan said. “When all of this comes together, preventive health is actually contributing to a high state of well-being.”
