In an effort towards creating a Big Data for health information in the country, the Khesar Gyalpo University of Medical Sciences of Bhutan (KGUMB) in collaboration with the health ministry organised the first-ever workshop on Health Big Data and Enterprise Architecture Convergence in Thimphu.
Big Data is an extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behaviour and interactions. Health professionals and policymakers from relevant stakeholders attended the two-day workshop which ended today.
24 international experts from the USA, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar and India facilitated the workshop. The international facilitators shared their experiences and challenges while applying Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in their respective countries for improving and digitizing healthcare services.
“I am really very excited with Bhutan because you have a lot of systems that are running while they are right now fragmented. It is very easy technologically to be able to create a Big Data system for your country because your country is small. It is harder for bigger countries. The challenge for Bhutan is to get all the different stakeholders together so that they can work together in creating the system and transition from the data sources to the target future state of Big Data for Bhutan,” Dr Alvin Marcelo, the Executive Director of Asia eHealth Information Network, said.
He added Big Data plays a crucial role in improving health care systems in developed countries. But globally, creating Big Data has been a challenge.
“It is always a challenge for most countries on how to get big data together. You might have laboratory data here, sometimes public health data over there. But they are all in separate places. So to be able to create that Big Data, you have to able to connect from these different data sources.”
The workshop was also aimed at introducing principles and application of Big Data, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence for KGUMSB which produces health professionals in the country.
“The workshop is to give an overview and how we can apply this modern technology to for improving our health care services, that means complimenting computer and machine learning, how it can complement doctors and clinicians. And equally this Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are being applied in other sectors in environmental and business. So it is now becoming very popular in other countries whereas, in Bhutan, this is a groundbreaking workshop,” Dr Sithar Dorjee, the Director of KGUMSB, said.
The major Artificial Intelligence applications in healthcare include diagnostics, robotic surgeries and virtual nursing assistants.
Pema Tshewang
