The Aga Khan University Hospital is banking on a Sh1.6 billion investment in technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to boost service delivery and enable it to scale from tertiary to secondary care provision in the region.
Rashid Khalani, the hospital’s chief executive officer, said that the rollout of AI-based solutions in service delivery is already unlocking gains with greater accuracy in diagnosis and efficiency in turnaround time.
He said that AI is already in use in, among other areas, the institution’s radiology department and is providing a case in point of how advanced technology can recast the medical landscape.
‘Until 2022, all our medical records were on paper. We have since spent $12 million on an Electronic Health Records system, and now, end-to-end, we are fully electronic, and that has allowed us to tap into machine learning. Last year, we went live with an Artificial Intelligence-based X-ray. So now radiology, which used to take 15 or 20 minutes looking at the image, is done within 30 seconds,’ Mr Khalani said.
He said that the efficiencies and savings unlocked through the use of AI are helping to drive the institution’s rapid expansion and diversification from its traditional tertiary focus to secondary healthcare.
The difference between tertiary and secondary healthcare is that whereas the former deals in highly specialised and advanced treatment of complex cases, the latter deals in more retail specialist consultation for common conditions.
‘Aga Khan represents tertiary medical care because we are a level six hospital. But now we are increasingly trying to get into the space of secondary healthcare as well. Between Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu, we have almost 100 medical centres, and we have to scale even further. Our outreach centres spread across the country target secondary care, which is closer to the community and at a much cheaper rate,’ the CEO said.
Mr Khalani argues that Kenya should position itself as the regional medical tourism hub for East and Central Africa to tap into the massive opportunity presented by thousands travelling outside the continent annually for treatment.
‘Twenty-three percent of Aga Khan’s inpatients are coming from outside Kenya; the trend is increasing. As this number grows, we need to construct more hospitals, both as the Aga Khan and as a country. Kenya has what it takes to become the regional hub for medical tourism. We will never be able to compete with the likes of India from a cost standpoint when it comes to medical tourism. We simply do not have the economies of scale to compete on cost. Where we can compete is in infrastructure, quality control, and accessibility,’ Mr Khalani says.