Disease surveillance programme using AI tools to detect early warning signals: Govt

The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme has been using Artificial Intelligence tools since April 2022 to detect early warning signals and generate alerts for the timely management of potential outbreaks, Minister of State for Health Prataprao Jadhav told Lok Sabha on Friday.

The programme is mandated with surveillance and response to outbreak-prone communicable diseases, Jadhav said in a written response. He was responding to a question on whether the Government proposes to expand the use of AI-enabled early-warning systems for real-time detection of disease outbreaks, antimicrobial resistance patterns and public health emergencies across States. The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools since April 2022, in media scanning and verification to detect early warning signals and generate alerts for timely management of potential outbreaks, Jadhav said. The Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) is a paperless, case-based, near real-time reporting system introduced in 2021 to strengthen national disease surveillance. All 36 States and Union Territories report through IHIP, which provides a unified platform for public-health monitoring at the district, state, and national levels, Jadhav stated. The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) was launched by the Government in September 2021 to support the development of an integrated, citizen-centric national digital health ecosystem.

Several national health programme platforms, including Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana and non-communicable diseases, are integrated with ABDM, enabling public health facilities in the states and UTs to use ABDM-enabled software, to create Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts and digital health records for seamless interoperability across the ecosystem.