2019 WAIC | Tao Xiaodong of iFLYTEK: 'AI + Healthcare' Makes High-Quality Medical Resources More Equitable and Accessible

What Are the Latest Developments in the Application of Artificial Intelligence Technology in the Healthcare Sector?

What Challenges Does “AI + Healthcare” Currently Face?

At the “Global AI Health Summit” parallel forum of the 2019 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Dr. Tao Xiaodong, President of the Medical Business Unit at iFlytek, delivered a keynote speech titled “Technological Innovation and Application of Artificial Intelligence in the Healthcare Sector.” He stated that “AI + Healthcare” should return to the essence of medicine to address clinical challenges, leveraging artificial intelligence to promote more equitable access to high-quality medical resources. Looking ahead, “AI + Healthcare” will trend toward human–machine collaboration.

Dr. Tao Xiaodong, President of the Medical Business Unit at iFlytek, Attended the 2019 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and Delivered a Speech

This encompasses two objectives: first, to enhance the efficiency of medical services by having artificial intelligence handle 80% of administrative tasks, thereby allowing physicians to focus on patient care; second, to improve the quality of medical services by leveraging AI assistance to empower average-performing physicians to deliver care comparable to that of top-tier practitioners.

The 2019 Global AI Health Summit brought together numerous key institutions and industry elites in the field of AI health. Representatives from organizations including the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), the Medical Industry Division of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Hospital Management Center of the National Health Commission, the National Medical Products Administration, and the Chinese Health Information Association attended the conference, along with representatives from leading AI health enterprises such as iFlytek Healthcare, United Imaging Healthcare, Tencent Healthcare, AWS Healthcare, Siemens Healthineers, Roche Diagnostics, IBM Watson, AstraZeneca China, and Babylon Health APAC.

Medical work is highly specialized and has a high barrier to entry. Why did iFlytek enter this field? Tao Xiaodong answered this question with four keywords: “innovation, doctors, patients, and society.” He stated that iFlytek’s innovations in the “AI + Healthcare” sector are driven by four progressively layered forces.

First, innovation for the sake of innovation: not primarily aimed at short-term applications, but laying the foundation for long-term technological advancement; second, innovation for physicians: enhancing doctors’ work efficiency and service capabilities; third, innovation for patients: alleviating patient suffering and improving their healthcare experience; fourth, innovation for society: reducing overall societal expenditure in the health and medical sector and improving the health status of the entire population.

Tao Xiaodong emphasized that doctors continue to play a decisive leadership role throughout the entire healthcare process. iFlytek aims to leverage artificial intelligence technologies to handle 80% of doctors’ administrative tasks, enabling them to focus more on delivering medical services to patients.

In hospital settings, iFlytek Medical’s AI products provide end-to-end services covering the pre-consultation, intra-consultation, and post-consultation phases. By leveraging pre-consultation medical history collection, voice-enabled electronic medical records (EMR), mobile clinical care systems, and post-consultation follow-ups, these solutions ensure accurate and comprehensive capture of patient data, along with its real-time and effective presentation. This comprehensively enhances healthcare professionals’ clinical competence and work efficiency, improves patients’ care experience, and elevates the service capacity and quality of hospitals.

Dr. Tao Xiaodong, President of the Medical Business Unit at iFlytek, Attended the 2019 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and Delivered a Speech

In the context of primary care and public health services, the advantages of general practice auxiliary diagnostic systems lie in facilitating the establishment of an orderly medical triage system and enhancing the diagnostic and treatment capabilities of primary healthcare institutions.

In 2017, the “Intelligent Medical Assistant” developed by iFlytek passed the comprehensive written examination of the National Medical Licensing Examination, scoring 456 points and outperforming 96.3% of human candidates. Today, this “Intelligent Medical Assistant” has long since left the examination room and entered primary healthcare institutions. Currently, it is capable of diagnosing nearly 1,000 types of common diseases, providing over ten thousand auxiliary diagnostic recommendations on average each day, and has delivered AI-assisted diagnosis and treatment services to nearly ten million patient visits.

Recently, Science and Technology Daily reported a case from the Xiaojiahe Town Central Health Center in Raohe County, Heilongjiang Province. In this case, the “AI Medical Assistant” alerted primary care physicians to the possibility of myocardial infarction based on the patient’s condition, enabling accurate referral and timely treatment at a tertiary hospital. Many similar cases have demonstrated the effectiveness of the “AI Medical Assistant” in assisting primary care physicians with the accurate diagnosis and prompt management of critical conditions associated with common symptoms encountered at the grassroots level.

Given the shortage of primary care physicians and the lengthy training cycle for high-level specialists, “Intelligent Medical Assistant” will serve as a physician’s “partner,” establishing an effective human–machine collaborative model in which physicians take the lead and AI systems provide support in the fight against disease.

Deep neural networks have sparked the third wave of artificial intelligence. Today, “AI + Healthcare” brings boundless opportunities; meanwhile, the comprehensive implementation of AI in the medical field remains a long and arduous journey. Tao Xiaodong believes that the future of “AI + Healthcare” faces four major challenges.

First, core algorithms need to be broken through. Only a major leap in technology itself can solve many of the bottleneck problems currently faced.

Second, the effective utilization of valuable data. Currently, there is no shortage of data, as textbooks, clinical guidelines, and expert consensus statements all constitute data. The key lies in collecting and processing information such as typical cases and valid data, and substantially transforming it into valuable knowledge that can be utilized by computers.

Third, explore new business models to achieve commercial success; industrial success will drive continuous technological advancement.

Fourth, public expectations for artificial intelligence exceed reality; managing societal expectations regarding the application of A.I. technology is also a challenge.