Hello and welcome to my interactive post! As you might know from my introduction post, I am using this blog to share my ideas/opinions about how AI is reshaping healthcare in the Global South. In this post, I am exploring how India is using AI to combat diabetes blindness. I hope you also could share your thoughts when it comes to the application of AI in healthcare.
Potential of AI on Sustainable Development Goals
To have a world of peace and prosperity, the transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI) must be channeled towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Less than ten years are left until the vision of the 2030 Agenda, so all institutions including the government, public and private sectors, and universities must accelerate and strengthen their efforts to build a better future.
In September 2015, 193 countries agreed to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This agenda, including 17 main goals and 169 targets, emphasizes the comprehensive efforts of all countries to achieve peace, prosperity, reduce inequality, gender equality, and protect the planet.
While the world is making progress in some areas, it is generally lagging in achieving the SDGs. Businesses, governments, universities, institutions, non-governmental organizations, etc., must work tirelessly to achieve the SDGs with every tool at their disposal, including AI.
There are different views on AI and its potential impact on sustainable development. Some believe that AI is a job killer; A tool that is used for the benefit of rulers and wealthy citizens of society, and worse than that, AI can be a threat to the survival of existence. However, AI also has great potential to help solve complex and interconnected challenges of sustainable development, such as climate change, access to health care, and inequality. How AI can either enable or inhibit the delivery of all 17 goals and 169 targets recognized in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has been presented here.
Fig. 1: Summary of positive and negative impact of AI on the various SDGs.
ref: Google Health AI project in India
Machine learning combined with human skills will be the next big frontier in AI technology that can drive positive social change, as well as solve some of today’s most pressing environmental problems. As a part of its ongoing pilot projects being tested around the world, including India, Google has already begun using AI to address various social and environmental challenges.
As all AI algorithms are powered by data, Google has discovered several fields in which machine learning can be applied to analyze large data sets to improve drive solutions. Healthcare, for example, has already started showing positive results with the use of AI for detecting Diabetic Retinopathy or DR.
Early screenings can prevent diabetic retinopathy, a complication of diabetes that can cause blindness. In some places, such as India, however, there aren’t enough specialists to conduct these screenings,” Dr. Lily Peng, said at the TEDx Talks event.
Regarding Dr. Lily Peng, she is “a doctor by training and now works with a team of doctors, scientists, and engineers at Google Health who use AI for medical imaging, to increase the availability and accuracy of care. Some of her team’s work includes building models to detect diabetic eye disease, predict cardiovascular health factors, and identify breast and lung cancer.
Fig. 2: Google’s Health Product Manager Lily Peng.
ref: The Times of India
Before Google, she was a product manager at Doximity, the “LinkedIn for physicians” and a co-founder of Nano Precision Medical, a drug delivery device start-up. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree with honors and distinction in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University, California, a doctorate in Bioengineering and a medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco.”
According to Dr. Lily Peng, a Google-Verily machine learning system can detect retinal disease in images with as much accuracy as human specialists. Several healthcare professionals in India have already tested the technology, and she said the results have been promising.
Diagnostics using technology
“Diabetic blindness is diagnosed by doctors in most hospitals and clinics worldwide by examining the eyes of their patients and determining small wounds, bleeding, and discoloration of the eyes. But Aravind Hospital is trying to do this process automatically. India’s Aravind Hospital, in collaboration with Google AI researchers, is testing a system that can detect these conditions.
Every day, more than 2000 people from all over India and even different countries of the world go to Aravind Eye Hospital and wait for hours to be examined in this 43-year-old hospital located in South India.”
Fig. 3: AI Google system diagnoses a retinal problem at the Aravind Hospital in India.
ref: The New York Times
“The researchers hope that the artificial intelligence system can help doctors see more patients in a country where diabetic retinopathy is common, and the number of patients is increasing. According to the World Health Organization, about 70 million Indians have diabetes and all of them face the risk of blindness.”
But in India, doctors are not properly trained to see all the patients. There are only 11 ophthalmologists for every million people in India. According to Dr. Lily Peng, the purpose of this project is to build and use systems that can automatically detect the symptoms of this disease in medical scans.
Computer screens for translation
“At Aravind, multiple computer screens are mounted on the walls of waiting rooms and translate information into the many languages spoken at the hospital. Mr. Ramalingam, 60, spoke Tamil, an ancient language of southern India and Sri Lanka, when he visited. He said he felt comfortable while the machine was checking his eye condition. After conducting preliminary examinations by the artificial intelligence system, doctors may check the eyes of the patients, and laser surgery may be needed to prevent and treat blindness.
Along with the application of this system, the presence of experienced ophthalmologists in the clinic is also necessary, and we still have a long way to go until this system can completely replace ophthalmologists.
Aravind Center is currently monitoring the management of small ophthalmology centers in various towns and villages around Madurai, and it is hoped that the Google system can provide more facilities in automatic eye visits.
Today, in many of these eye centers, technicians perform eye scans and send the results to doctors in Madurai for review.”
Towards sustainable AI
The goals of sustainable development have a complex structure and include issues such as climate conditions, relations between different parts of a society, industries, educational, cultural institutions, etc., that achieving these goals requires the comprehensive cooperation of different parts.
The important point here is that in the realization of SDGs, the temptation of implementing individual goals without considering the generality and connection between them should be avoided. Academic institutions, especially those that focus on interdisciplinary issues, are effective platforms for realizing this type of approach.
The problem of artificial intelligence is naturally associated with challenges that, according to researchers, these challenges should be investigated and raised in such a way that they can be answered through this artificial intelligence technology.
The world needs an unprecedented and extensive cooperation to use the power of artificial intelligence in achieving SDGs, and each country individually has a significant contribution in advancing these goals.
