Tsinghua Healthcare Intelligent System: Advancing AI-Driven Innovation in Medical-Engineering Integration

The integration of medicine and engineering is the product of the interdisciplinary fusion of medicine and engineering. By applying engineering technologies to the healthcare sector, it has driven technological advancements and innovation in medical care. This integration not only enhances the quality and efficiency of healthcare services but also helps address population aging, optimize the allocation of medical resources, strengthen international competitiveness, and promote upgrades across the industry chain. Furthermore, the integration of medicine and engineering supports sustainable social development by improving the accessibility and affordability of healthcare services, thereby contributing to the achievement of national health objectives.

Meanwhile, the importance of integrating medicine and engineering in industrial development is also reflected in its ability to create new job opportunities, promote economic growth, and cultivate interdisciplinary talent. It enhances the competitiveness of the healthcare industry in the context of globalization, while effectively addressing public health emergencies and the challenges of chronic diseases through rapidly responsive medical technologies and equipment.

Recently,At the Top 100 Summit of the VBEF Future Healthcare Ecosystem Expo hosted by VCBeat, Professor Yang Bin, Director of the Smart Health Center at the Institute for Precision Medicine, Tsinghua University, delivered a speech titled “Artificial Intelligence Promoting Innovation in Medical-Engineering Integration: Explorations and Practices.”Below is the transcript of the speech.

Developing next-generation artificial intelligence is a key strategic lever for China to secure global technological leadership, and serves as a vital strategic resource for driving leapfrog advancements in science and technology, optimizing and upgrading industries, and achieving an overall surge in productivity. In his speech, Professor Yang Bin showcased the application prospects of AI in the healthcare sector, highlighting current challenges and future development directions. He emphasized that it is crucial to establish a comprehensive healthcare service system grounded in clinical needs.

Professor Yang noted that AI will serve as a vital strategic resource for driving technological advancement and industrial upgrading in the future healthcare sector. The development of AI can help alleviate the shortage of high-level expert resources, expand physicians’ service capacity, and thereby benefit a broader patient population.

Although the field of artificial intelligence is developing rapidly, many challenges remain to be addressed. First, deep learning has limitations; due to poor robustness and lack of trustworthiness, AI systems are prone to misidentification errors. Second, deep learning suffers from a lack of interpretability. Deep learning models typically require large volumes of images for training, yet how these models learn from images and identify features often remains a “black box” to humans, making it difficult to intuitively understand how specific decisions are made.

These challenges pose significant difficulties for medical image recognition. In pathological image analysis, models are required to accurately identify lesion regions. However, if a model relies solely on large volumes of training data without sufficient grounding in medical knowledge, it may fail to explain why specific regions are classified as lesions. This lack of interpretability can lead to diagnostic errors.

In the face of these challenges, the third-generation AI theory proposed by Academician Zhang Bo, a pioneer of artificial intelligence in China, will serve as an important foundation for addressing these issues. The developmental approach of third-generation AI integrates the knowledge-driven paradigm of the first generation with the data-driven paradigm of the second generation, leveraging four key elements—knowledge, data, algorithms, and computing power—to build more powerful AI systems. Professor Yang noted that among these elements, knowledge takes precedence, providing theoretical support for enhancing interpretability and safety. “By incorporating knowledge—specifically, healthcare knowledge combined with large healthcare models—we can shape a new generation of artificial intelligence, thereby supporting smart healthcare and advancing the Healthy China strategy.”

To achieve this goal, Professor Yang emphasized the importance of starting from clinical needs. He proposed that we need to establish a healthcare service system accessible to everyone, at all times, and in all places, covering the entire process of prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation, thereby achieving nationwide coverage, services for the entire population, and lifelong health management. The medical-engineering integration industry should strive in this direction to better meet the health needs of the people.

To meet R&D demands, Professor Yang and his team have undertaken numerous initiatives integrating medicine with engineering. Currently, the Smart Health Center of the Institute for Precision Medicine at Tsinghua University is striving to extend medical knowledge beyond hospital settings through technological innovation, thereby promoting the digitalization, networking, and intelligent transformation of the healthcare sector to deliver safer and more efficient medical services.

To meet R&D demands and expand medical services, one of the primary challenges initially faced was addressing data connectivity and storage across different regions. Professor Yang’s team leveraged autonomous and controllable technologies, such as cryptography and blockchain, along with privacy-preserving computation and secure multi-party computation, to achieve secure data storage and sharing across multiple locations. This initiative facilitates the establishment of personal health records for residents, ensuring comprehensive coverage across pre-hospital, in-hospital, and post-hospital stages, thereby constructing an integrated medical system that spans both inside and outside hospital settings.

Through this integrated system, comprehensive management of diseases can be achieved, covering the entire process from detection and assessment to intervention. Meanwhile, Professor Yang’s team has collected a large volume of multimodal monitoring data, which not only includes changes in patients following surgeries or interventions at different time points but also encompasses health information across both temporal and spatial dimensions. This health data space provides the essential data foundation for precision diagnosis and treatment as well as disease intervention.

In the past, hospital operations were relatively closed, with a primary focus on in-hospital medical safety. If digitalization and networking are considered prerequisites for intelligence, the scope must extend beyond the hospital walls to include external environments. Through collaboration with the China Smart Hospital Alliance, Professor Yang’s team has established a trusted security foundation, which has received support from relevant national ministries and commissions. The development of smart health applications on this secure foundation has significantly ensured their safety.

Professor Yang stated, “The combined forces of digitalization, network connectivity, and intelligence will enable the deployment of remote healthcare capabilities, which in turn will facilitate remote consultations, remote examinations, and remote surgeries.” This is expected to extend the expertise of leading specialists to a broader patient population.

Through a series of innovative medical technologies and services, intelligent means can expand the coverage of healthcare services. For instance, AI-powered assistant systems will help primary care physicians address the majority of patients’ health concerns and provide remote support from tertiary hospitals when necessary. Blockchain technology is employed to record credit information across the entire healthcare industry, encompassing service providers, product suppliers, and patients. Furthermore, an intelligent emergency response system can deliver mobile hospital services to overseas peacekeeping forces and populations in remote areas. In addition, the integration of medicine and engineering will play a significant role in applications such as electronic drugs, sleep-aid devices, pelvic floor rehabilitation, intelligent foot measurement systems, and the establishment of chronic disease management platforms, thereby providing personalized treatment plans.

Professor Yang stated, “In the field of medical-engineering integration, there is still much work to be done, ranging from infrastructure and standard systems to health technology, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and talent development. We hope to leverage Tsinghua University’s strengths to gather top talent worldwide, integrate industry, academia, and research, and unite research institutions, hospitals, and enterprises to jointly create a better future.”