China's AI-general practitioner system starts hospital trial

HEFEI — An AI-general practitioner system developed by a Chinese tech firm has started its "internship" in a community hospital in East China's Anhui province.

The system called "AI doctor assistant" can listen to doctors diagnosing inquiries with patients and automatically produce e-documents for patient case reports.

Hu Jingyun, director of the Shuanggang Community Health Service Center in Luyang district of Hefei, the provincial capital, said the AI assistant could quickly review patient case histories and suggest prescriptions based on data in similar cases.

The system was developed by Shenzhen-listed iFlytek in partnership with Tsinghua University.

The company's medical robot passed China's national medical license examination with a high score in 2017. It was the world's first robot to pass a national medical license examination.

The company said it had optimized the robot technology in the development of the "AI doctor assistant," equipping it with intelligent voice functions and self-learning abilities.

Currently, the system's diagnosing reports and prescriptions still need the signatures of doctors for approval.

Ke Manxue, a health official in Luyang district, said the district would use the "AI doctor assistant" to improve grassroots medical services, as it could ease the workload of general practitioners in outpatient visits.