Digital medicine, AI critical to future healthcare, says minister

Our Correspondent

Jammu, January 29

Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State in PMO, said today that artificial intelligence (AI) and digital medicine was critical to future healthcare.

During a visit to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here for the inspection of the upcoming new blocks and inauguration of recently developed facilities, Dr Jitendra Singh suggested that in order to develop an exclusive identity for the institution, the focus should be on these futuristic areas.

“Telemedicine and robotic surgery have already taken over in a big way and the indispensable utility of these new options was realised during the pandemic times,” he said.

The minister announced that AIIMS-Jammu will function in close collaboration with CSIR-IIIM, Jammu. An MoU was signed between Dr Shakti Gupta, AIIMS-Jammu Director, and Dr D Srinivasa Reddy, CSIR-IIIM Director, on behalf of the two institutions.

The minister said it was an irony that CSIR-IIIM, Jammu, and Government Medical College (GMC) were located just about 4 km from each other and even though both the institutions were dedicated to medical research, there was hardly any collaboration between the two in the past. He said every effort would be made to bring in closer integration of IIIM with GMC and also between IIIM and AIIMS, Jammu, both of which happen to be the Central government institutions.