India (Commonwealth Union)_ Apollo Hospitals has announced a significant expansion of its partnership with Google Cloud, with a focus on enhancing healthcare services for every individual in India through Apollo’s digital platform, Apollo 24|7. Designed exclusively on the Google Cloud platform, Apollo 24|7 aims to provide a comprehensive healthcare experience to the Indian population, offering telemedicine services, online doctor consultations, home delivery of medicines, and improved decision-making support for clinicians.
Shobana Kamineni, Vice-Chairperson of Apollo Hospitals, emphasized the pressing challenge of accessing timely and accurate health information in India. She underscored the collaborative efforts with Google Cloud to address this challenge through various initiatives. The partnership leverages Apollo’s extensive healthcare expertise, data resources, and hospital network to usher in a new era of precision and empathy in clinical decision-making, powered by medical-grade generative AI. The introduction of AskApollo exemplifies the fusion of technology and compassion, poised to revolutionize patient care. She said, “Access to timely and accurate health information is a real challenge in India, and our partnership with Google Cloud is poised to address it through various collaborations. Apollo’s expertise, data and hospital network will help shape a new era of precision and empathy in clinical decision making with medical grade generative AI, and AskApollo embodies the fusion of technology and compassion to revolutionize patient care”.
A key component of the partnership entails the development of an AI-driven clinical decision support system that empowers doctors to identify the most suitable course of action during patient consultations. The AskApollo service directly assists patients in navigating their healthcare journey. Furthermore, the collaboration includes the establishment of a scalable, modernized cloud platform for Apollo 24|7 and the dissemination of reliable healthcare information through Google Search.
Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, highlighted the transformative potential of generative AI in enabling conversational medicine for both clinicians and patients. He expressed the belief that this partnership with Apollo Hospitals will significantly enhance healthcare accessibility, support healthcare professionals and teams, and foster more robust patient engagement, ultimately benefiting millions of individuals across India. He said, “Generative AI has the transformative power to bring conversational medicine to clinicians and patients alike. Our work with Apollo Hospitals will improve accessibility in healthcare, support clinicians and care teams, and drive better patient engagement—ultimately benefiting millions of Indians”.
Crucially, Google Cloud’s commitment to robust data governance and privacy policies ensures that customers retain control over their data. In healthcare settings, stringent safeguards are in place to protect the access and use of patient data, with Google Cloud’s infrastructure and data storage, combined with each customer’s security measures, privacy controls, and established processes, ensuring the highest standards of data security and privacy.
