How AI can be optimised for better healthcare

GS-II: Health | E-Governance | Artificial Intelligence | Digital Health | Inclusive Healthcare | Economic Development

Context

• AI and healthcare: Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers a way to make accumulated medical knowledge more widely available at the point of care.
• India’s challenge: India is expanding healthcare capacity while facing a more complex disease burden.
• Limited clinical capacity: The reach of healthcare depends on trained clinicians, healthcare institutions and systems connecting them to patients, all of which are difficult to expand quickly.
• Global adoption: In January 2025, the U.S. FDA said it had authorised more than 1,000 AI-enabled medical devices.
• UK experience: In April 2025, the NHS issued guidance on AI-enabled ambient scribing, with early evidence suggesting that it could give doctors up to 25% more time with patients.
• Changing role of AI: AI is moving from innovation teams into consultations, diagnostic workflows and hospital operations.

India’s Healthcare Challenges

• Unequal distribution: Specialist care remains concentrated in larger cities.
• Chronic diseases: Chronic conditions require patients to be monitored over many years.
• Rising patient volumes: Hospitals are managing increasing workloads without being able to expand clinical capacity at the same pace.
• AI-enabled efficiency: AI can help prioritise radiology scans, alert care teams about deteriorating patients and support physicians handling complex cases in smaller cities.

Digital Foundation for AI

• Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts: By May 2026, more than 100 crore health records had been linked to Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts, twice the number recorded in February 2025.
• ABDM Scan and Share: A July 2026 government update reported that the service reduced outpatient registration waits at participating hospitals from around one hour to 2–5 minutes.
• Reducing friction: These improvements demonstrate how digital systems can make familiar healthcare processes more efficient.
• AI applications: The same principle can be extended to appointment scheduling, clinical documentation, claims, inventory planning and discharge management.

Economic Benefits of AI

• Lower healthcare costs: A January 2026 McKinsey analysis estimated that applying AI across healthcare revenue-cycle operations could reduce the cost to collect by 30–60%.
• Better resource allocation: Savings can free resources for clinical teams, equipment and healthcare capacity.
• Reduced administrative burden: AI can reduce administrative work that contributes to staff fatigue.
• New healthcare services: AI can enable providers to offer services that were previously difficult to deliver at scale.

Expanding Access to Healthcare

• Remote monitoring: Can extend care beyond discharge.
• Preventive programmes: Risk-based programmes can identify people requiring attention before symptoms become severe.
• Virtual specialist support: Can connect smaller hospitals with expertise located elsewhere.
• Decentralised diagnostics: Diagnostics can be taken closer to communities.
• Continuous care: Hospitals can maintain an ongoing relationship with patients managing diabetes, cardiac disease or cancer.
• Early intervention: The value of these models lies in reaching patients earlier and avoiding preventable deterioration.

Need for Judicious Use

• Context-specific performance: An AI system that performs well in one hospital or population may not work equally well across India’s States, disease patterns and care settings.
• Clinical validation: AI systems require proper clinical validation before routine use.
• Representative data: AI systems need representative data to avoid unreliable outcomes across different populations.
• Human oversight: Human supervision remains important in healthcare decision-making.
• Real-world evaluation: The FDA’s September 2025 call for better methods to evaluate AI-enabled devices in real-world settings highlights the need for continuous assessment.
• Performance over time: Good performance at launch does not guarantee good performance over time.
• Targeted deployment: Healthcare does not need AI everywhere; it needs AI where it can reduce delays, improve clinical decisions and help more patients receive appropriate care.

AI, Healthcare and Economic Development

• Human capital: The economic strength of a nation ultimately rests on the capabilities of its people.
• Healthcare as development: Healthcare therefore forms an important part of the architecture of economic development.
• Next phase of development: India’s future development will increasingly depend on the health, longevity and productivity of its population.
• Wider access to expertise: AI can make medical expertise more widely available.
• Preventive healthcare: AI can shift healthcare towards earlier detection and continuous management.
• Human-centred approach: The economic return of AI should not be measured merely by the number of systems deployed, but by the number of lives touched and its impact on human life and happiness.

Way Forward

• Deploy AI judiciously: Use AI where it can reduce delays and improve patient care.
• Strengthen validation: Ensure clinical validation and real-world evaluation of AI-enabled healthcare tools.
• Ensure representative data: Develop systems using data that adequately represents India’s diverse populations and healthcare settings.
• Maintain human oversight: AI should support, rather than replace, clinical decision-making.
• Expand digital health infrastructure: Build upon existing digital platforms such as ABDM.
• Improve rural and smaller-city access: Use AI and virtual specialist support to extend expertise beyond major cities.
• Focus on outcomes: Measure AI success through better healthcare access, earlier detection, continuous care and improved patient outcomes.

Conclusion

AI can help India overcome the limits imposed by the unequal distribution of medical expertise and rising healthcare demand. However, its value will depend not on how widely it is deployed, but on whether it reaches patients earlier, supports clinicians and improves human well-being. India should therefore pursue a judicious, validated and human-centred adoption of AI, making healthcare technology an instrument of both better health and economic development.

UPSC Mains Practice Question

Q. “Artificial Intelligence can expand the reach of healthcare expertise and improve the efficiency of India’s health system.” Discuss its economic benefits and challenges, and suggest measures for its judicious use.