This healthtech startup is using an AI-based solution to prescreen COVID-19 patients

The coronavirus pandemic has posed to be one of the greatest healthcare challenges before the world. While countries across the world have stepped up efforts to carefully screen patients to avoid the spread of the coronavirus, the burden ultimately rests on the shoulders of healthcare professionals, who are risking their own lives to save others.

In India, which has a population of 1.3 billion, pre-screening the public before they go for COVID-19 tests might be a good option to reduce the load on our healthcare professionals and resources.

Keeping this in mind, Bengaluru-based AIkenist has come up with an artificial intelligence (AI) tool, which distinguishes COVID-19 related pneumonia depending on the patient’s lung damage. 

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The startup was founded in 2019 by Ashwin Amarapur. It provides AI-based solutions for faster scanning and better detection, with quick turnaround solutions for healthcare problems.

Speaking to YourStory Media, Ashwin Amarapur, Founder and CEO, AIkenist, explains, the company has developed a cloud-hosted AI solution called AIkenist QuickDiag COVID 19, which is compatible with all kinds of digital X-ray and CT scanning machines. The chest X-ray and CT-scan images are pushed to the cloud service where lung anomaly is diagnosed to screen COVID-19 patients.

Apart from this, the company currently offers an AI-based product called Quickscan for MRI scans, and claims it diagnoses the issue four times faster. Its other product, Quickdiag, provides AI-analysis for tumor detection and segmentation of brain, liver, pancreas, etc.

AI-based radiology solution

“We have developed a solution which actually detects the extent of damage inside the lungs. We can detect bilobular anomaly, opacities, and consolidation in a patient who might be infected with coronavirus,” says Ashwin.

According to him, the cloud software analyses the images and shares the results with healthcare professionals to help them decide the next course of action. He also claims the results are available within a minute after the scans are uploaded in the server. 

Ashwin says, the startup is also looking to make the solution affordable to the masses, and will cost around Rs 100 per scan.

Current status

In April this year, AIkenist was nominated by Bengaluru-based incubator Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) as a deployment-ready COVID-19 innovation.

According to Ashwin, the company developed the solution after studying data sets across countries.

“We have got datasets from different hospitals from China, Italy, the UK and other European countries, and we are actually working on data collection in India, and thus it is an ongoing effort. We are also working with C-CAMP to propose hospitals for deployment.”

Ashwin explains the company is planning to complete its clinical trials and get the product out in the market for use within a month’s time.

“We are looking at Victoria Hospital in Bengaluru and SevenHills hospital in Mumbai for trials and deployment,” Ashwin says.

Speaking about future plans, Ashwin says, the company is now looking to complete its one-month trials and try the solution in at least 10 hospitals. Following this, the company is looking at a wider deployment of the solution.

At present, the total number of Covid-19 cases in India have crossed the 46,000-mark, as per the latest update by the Union Health Ministry. Over 1,500 people have died due to the virus across the country.