More Chinese people maintain health painlessly, efficiently with AI

HANGZHOU, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- In Wuzhen, a small town in east China's Zhejiang Province, a hospital utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) technology to upgrade services related to medical examinations, chronic disease management and rehabilitation.

Local resident Zhu Weibin experienced an AI-based liver function test recently. An automatically generated report diagnosed him with a fatty liver.

Zhu was very pleased as this diagnosis is much more efficient and accurate -- with AI helping to reduce the indicator threshold for determining fatty liver from 30 percent to just 5 percent.

"It enables me to intervene in the disease process at an earlier stage," Zhu said.

This smart medical service gives a glimpse into the trend of China's health industry as it shifts towards tapping digital technologies to make it easier for people to maintain their health.

On the sidelines of the 2024 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, which closed in Zhejiang on Friday, many industry insiders agreed that Chinese people are now placing greater emphasis on improving their quality of life. This is even more so given the pressure resulting from population aging and the increasing incidences of chronic disease.

Nevertheless, facing challenges such as inaccessibility of health services in rural areas and insufficient health literacy, some people still find it difficult to manage their health effectively and efficiently -- with insiders suggesting that AI applications are a solution to such obstacles.

In a drugstore in the metropolis of Shanghai, an AI-empowered application ensures that pain sufferers have accurate and timely access to the medicines they need.

The application, named Fenbid AI Pain Management Assistant, leverages natural language processing and knowledge graph technologies to provide professional and personalized solutions, according to developer Haleon, a health product manufacturer headquartered in Britain. Fenbid is a common painkiller in China.

"Many drugstores don't have pharmacists, while today's consumers pay increasing attention to the safety of taking medicines," said Liu Bing, an executive with Haleon responsible for digitalization in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong.

She added that the AI-empowered application, by suggesting optimum ways to reduce pain based on evaluation and consideration of allergic history and drug-using risks, benefits both patients and drugstores.

China has seen steady growth of its health industry. According to the National Health Commission (NHC), the sector is projected to reach 16 trillion yuan (about 2.21 trillion U.S. dollars) in terms of scale by 2030, heralding huge opportunities for AI applications.

Nie Zaiqing, a professor at Tsinghua University, believes that AI technology will transform many industries, particularly the medical and manufacturing sectors.

At an exhibition during the Wuzhen summit, an AI-driven platform designed for early screening of multiple tumors and chronic diseases captured much attention.

Developed by a research institute under Alibaba Group, this platform enabled an early-stage pancreatic cancer patient, a woman surnamed Huang in Jiangsu Province, to receive timely treatment. Huang was not diagnosed with cancer following a traditional CT examination. The AI-driven platform, however, did detect the presence of cancer.

This AI solution to cancer screening also has an economic advantage. According to its developer, it only costs about 200 yuan to check for as many as seven prevalent cancers, such as lung and stomach cancers, all at once -- compared with an accumulated 3,000 yuan previously.

The Chinese government has voiced support for the presence of AI in the health sector. This year's government work report proposed an "AI plus" initiative, while the NHC and other authorities earlier this month issued a reference concerning the application of AI scenarios in the medical and health industries.

Optimistic about the prospects of using AI to improve health products and services, Liu said her company's pain management service is currently being piloted in both Shanghai and Chongqing, and is expected to be expanded to other areas across China next year.

"It coincides with the Healthy China Initiative. We hope that our solution will also serve as an assistant for pharmacists and doctors at grassroots medical and health institutions in the near future," Liu said.