How Practo uses Artificial Intelligence

The health-tech platform is leveraging AI for search optimization and connecting patients to relevant doctors with required specialization

Abhinav Lal, Co-Founder & CTO, Practo
Abhinav Lal, Co-Founder & CTO, Practo
When this pandemic hit, Bangalore-based Practo knew patients would look for genuine, authentic information. During the lockdown they had to create a Covid dashboard overnight which facilitated users to get authentic information from WHO & Ministry in one place.

Apart from the new dashboard, Practo also made some design changes to make it user friendly during Covid-19. They have also leveraged telemedicine and other technologies to optimize the on-boarding process of doctors and other actions.

“We launched a dedicated section on the app, to share most relevant, up to date, reliable information around the infection, myths vs facts, testing centers, FAQs, and enable patients to quickly connect with doctors via tele consult. Even free online consultations for one hour with top doctors were announced to encourage more people to get used to the concept of telemedicine, and help prevent self-diagnosis,” Abhinav Lal, Co-Founder & CTO of Practo, said.

Practo currently manages over two crore patients every month. While the company was growing and trying to make a mark in the industry, they realised that hospitals were not able to manage their activities and this can cause patients to keep in longer queues. With this motion, Lal worked on two different platforms to address this challenge.

“We have acquired a HIMS solution called Insta for mid-sized hospitals. It helped in tracking all activities of the hospital, maximising inventory controls and more. Top of it, a platform known as Qikwell was also introduced which operates OPD management for large hospitals,” Lal said.

According to Lal, patients face challenges with big hospitals such as standing in waiting lines, etc. So this intelligent patient relationship management system ensures smooth appointments, shorter queues, digital payments and more. All of these platforms are SaaS based and have supported their business to grow.

Role of AI/Ml in healthcare: Boon or Bane

While Practo’s algorithms are helping patients to connect with relevant and specialised doctors, the question arises is how are they developing and training this algorithm.

Just like any other digital company in the healthcare industry, Patients's feedback and information around their search for specific doctors and medical conditions becomes a foundational data set. Apart from this, Practo is leveraging post-consultation information which involves doctors’s specialisation, technique, suggestions around medical treatment, etc.

But as we deal with AI and ML algorithms especially, companies do face biases and other challenges. Though Practo tried to confront some of those challenges by verification of patient’s feedback and ensuring other standards. But the filtering process of verification is yet again done by AI and algorithms.

“We started to create data sets manually but with time, now our system is automated to develop it. The stories you read on Practo crosses multiple levels of verification before being published. Our moderation team, with the help of AI and algorithms, makes sure that only first-hand, helpful experiences make it to the platform. Our highly-efficient automated tools used to flag questionable content help detect non-compliant with ease,” Lal highlighted.

Lack of tech legacy has become an opportunity

According to Lal, Indian healthcare institutions do not have any legacy of technologies. So there’s a huge opportunity for the sector to grow and adopt newer technologies without any traditional barriers.

While APIs are bringing change and a huge impact in the healthcare industry, on the same hand market players such as Practo are looking forward to more and better standards of health data exchange in India.

Practo is using API in online appointment booking. It helps for efficient time management of 24/7 booking for patients. API allows hassle free management of appointments and minimise chances of dropping patients at the last minute.

In case of a patient's no show, this system helps to manage doctor’s appointment book accordingly which helps in giving real time availability updates and streamline the availability of doctors especially with large hospitals.

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