China seeks digital salve to ease hospital strain

Shanghai: In the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, an ambulance speeds through traffic on a wave of green lights, helped along by an artificial intelligence ( AI) system and big data. The system, which involves sending information to a centralized computer linked to the city’s transport networks, is part of a trial by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. The Chinese tech giant is hoping to use its cloud and data systems to tackle issues hobbling China’s healthcare system like snarled city traffic, long patient queues and a lack of doctors. Alibaba’s push into healthcare reflects a wider trend in China, where technology firms are racing to shake up a creaking staterun health sector and take a slice of spending that McKinsey & Co estimates will hit $ 1 trillion by 2020. Tencent- backed WeDoctor, which offers online consultations and doctor appointments, raised $ 500 million in May at a valuation of $ 5.5 billion. Ping An Good Doctor, a similar platform backed by Ping An Insurance, raised $ 1.1 billion in an IPO this year. “The opportunity is growing very fast,” said Min Wanli, the Hangzhou- based chief machine intelligence scientist at Alibaba’s cloud division. Alibaba is working with a hospital in Shanghai using data to predict patient demand and allocate doctors. In Zhejiang province, the company is working on AI- assisted diagnosis tools to help analyze medical images such as CT scans and MRIs. “You need to go through very specialized training in order to read these images, but we know that experts are a very scarce resource,” said Min. Chinese hospitals are increasingly using technology to bridge the gap between urban centers and remote parts of the country where doctors are in short supply.