India's National Health Authority and the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur will be collaborating to develop an open benchmarking platform for validating AI models.

The organisations recently signed a memorandum of understanding to use data to improve public health outcomes.

IIT Kanpur will build a platform for publicly verifiable performance benchmarks based on data available in the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). This will be used to validate AI models for quantifying and diagnosing diseases. 

The university will also build a database that protects against statistical dredging, machine learning models, and a consent management system for researchers, which will all be later transferred to the NHA to operate and maintain. 

WHY IT MATTERS

Union Health Minister Apurva Chandra underscored the lack of available data for verifying AI models in India. 

"[O]ne of the biggest issues related to AI models in the healthcare sector is the availability and efficacy of disease diagnosis data, which will be tackled by this collaboration."

The benchmarking platform being developed will provide researchers with access to high-quality data and a forum to collaborate with others in the health ecosystem. It will also ensure "all aspects" of data privacy, added L.S. Changsan, an additional secretary of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. 

"[T]his partnership with the NHA will contribute towards democratising access to quality healthcare in India," Manindra Agrawal, professor and director of IIT Kanpur, also commented.

THE LARGER TREND

The NHA, which runs the ABDM, a national programme launched in 2021 to build the foundations of India's digital health ecosystem, intends to harness publicly available health and healthcare data to develop digital technologies. 

The ABDM comprises three main blocks: the Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) numbers, the Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR), and the Health Facility Registry. A public dashboard was created in 2022 providing a real-time numbers feed of each block.

Recently, an upgraded database of registered medical doctors in the country was launched. The new National Medical Register, created under the National Medical Commission Act of 2019, will be part of ABDM under the HPR.