Modern Healthcare - touching lives

Over the last two decades, the healthcare industry has undergone radical transformations. Just like any other field, medicine has been no exception to adapting to technological drive. Indeed, the usage of technology for medicinal purposes has just risen manifold. The latest addition perhaps is open-source medicine where open source software tools are used in hospitals and labs. While it is no surprise that the US and Europe are leading this race, Asian countries - particularly countries like India, Singapore and China are catching up pretty fast. Of course, for these countries, it is only natural to be part of the race, considering their stronghold on Information Technology and its services. Apollo Hospitals in India certainly is one of the pioneers to tackle complex medical problems with the effective use of IT. 

My post on this topic comes out of personal experience. Five years ago, I visited Germany as part of an internship program. I worked in a biomedical research company there, where I was part of a team that developed an application to detect the presence of cancer. So, this lab treats cervical cancer among women. Until then, tissues and samples were processed onto a microscope and analyzed manually by experts. Needless to say, this was prone to human error. The lab, thus decided to automate the whole process.

So, the idea was to take these slides, digitize them by transferring onto the computer. These cell images would then be subject to various image processing algorithms. On level one, all background information would be removed, leaving only the actual cells. On level two, cell borders would be identified. Moving further, a split algorithm would be applied to try and separate individual bunch of cells. After this, a watershed segmentation would be applied to separate individual cells among a bunch. This is very tricky, since no part of the cell image (that being actual samples from the body) should not be lost, as this would then prove to be utterly pointless to analyze. The last level is sending these processed images to a system that uses Neural network and Artificial Intelligence techniques to actually detect the presence of cancer.

I was involved in the first four phases of the project, the most critical ones. This involved a lot of research on the Internet about both Mathematical/computer related algorithms as well as biological concepts. Now, that proved quite difficult, but was informative nonetheless. More than anything, it made me realize the actual potential of such a vital aspect of medicine.

What I have explained above is merely one particular idea being explored. Tons and tons of such research is being carried on worldwide even as I type. Scientists and technologists are working in parallel to expand the reach of IT into medicine to ensure effective treatment. This gains prominence in the wake of the emerging medical tourism industries.

The purpose of healthcare is quite simply to ensure everyone's wellbeing. Gone are days when primitive or not-so-developed facilities actually resulted in lack of healthcare welfare for the needy. I personally have experienced losing a really close family member due to non-availability of the right treatment. I have also heard of successful treatments which have saved a person's life. Critiques always argue about the demerits of the use of technology. However, breakthroughs are proving them wrong. Everyday, we read of success stories about how a patient's life was saved due to timely use of technological expertise. Such stories are always heartening, at the same time, putting faith in the use of technology in the healthcare industry.

The journey traversed is fairly small, the path sure has been difficult, but the journey ahead is going to be a lot more challenging and the path all the more difficult. Yet, the final goal is crystal clear. On that note, I would like to reaffirm my firm belief that modern day healthcare, with the usage of technology, would go a long way in enriching and enhancing the lives of people

- Prashanth

(This post is written as part of contest titled How does Modern Healthcare touch lives organized jointly by Apollo Hospitals and Indiblogger.)