CIOInsider India Magazine
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Dr. Masood Ikram
Managing Director
The already blooming healthcare technology industry has adjoined an additional propeller with the unprecedented, drastic requirements of the market during the pandemic. The technology is expected to play a bigger-than-ever-before role while the healthcare industry maneuver through Covid-19, and igniting the spark to concoct this most awaited revolution in India is Mellon AI – a NASSCOM incubated startup that endeavors to break the iron triangle of healthcare – Cost, Quality and Access – with cutting edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning, Internet of Things and Block chain. We engaged in an exclusive interaction with the company’s Managing Director, Dr. Masood Ikram, who took us the through the novel endeavors of the company.
In conversation with Dr. Masood Ikram, Managing Director, MellonAI
How do you leverage your knowledge and experience as a medical professional to bridge the gap between technology and healthcare in a better way?
Being an MBBS and MBA graduate, I have got the requisite domain knowledge to meticulously understand the problems faced by the modern healthcare industry. As a clinician, I can figure out the pain points of any practicing doctor and in turn can offer a wide range of solutions. On the other hand, with my previous experience as a healthcare administrator, I can effectively list down the hassles faced by the patients, right from outpatient
waiting to the discharge of the patient. Having the combination of both domain and technology knowledge makes my profile distinct from the rest. It’s an exceptional advantage to have.
What are the challenges that Mellon AI solves for its customers through its solutions?
With the outrage of online information, patients are really smart nowadays; to say nothing of the prevailing poor doctor to patient ratio. So the challenges boil down to the need for making the doctors smart, and helping them optimize their potential. Imagine a doctors in the outskirts who has limited access to the healthcare tools and facilities. We endeavor to give them tech-powered tools that will increase their capabilities. For instance, we don’t have clinical dietitians in every nook and corner of our country like we have doctors. So, we use an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered tool that can be used by any doctor to provide patients with accurate diet charts. We augment a doctor’s capabilities by using AI.
We endeavor to give them tech-powered tools that will increase their capabilities
Tell us about your latest solutions.
The government has banned biometric finger scanners across the country, considering the potential virus spread, which is more intense in hospitals. We have developed a product called ‘CapEmo’ (Capture-Emotion), which incorporates cameras deployed at the entrance. As an employee, doctor, or patient walks through the system, it not only automatically detects the face to record attendance, but also captures emotions on their face, providing valuable insights into the patient experience and satisfaction. This system can also be deployed in front of pharmacies to detect people waiting for longer periods than usual and provide them with immediate assistance. Furthermore, CapEmo also helps
organizations to spot offenders and blacklist them permanently, making sure that a change in security personnel doesn’t affect the blacklist - everything with the convenience of a dashboard. Putting it in a nutshell, whatever happens on the hospital floor is converted into data and actionable insights.
What is the technology framework that goes behind such a sophisticated solution like CapEmo?
It’s majorly about a combination of hardware optics, AI, and computer vision. Though the technology is in use abroad, the data sets to detect emotions of people in India are not currently available. Thus, we have built our own data sets, which was a huge challenge that we overcame. On the other hand, when it comes to optics, we are talking about distinctively capturing every face among a crowd. Every camera incorporated in the system is Wi-Fi-enabled (plug & play), is equipped with motorized zooming capability, and has a GPU that takes out the need for a centralized server unit for the equipment.
We have implemented the solution across 14 hospitals of one of the leading healthcare groups in Andhra Pradesh & Telangana. We are all set to deploy the solution in a couple hospitals in Tamil Nadu as well.
What is the future roadmap set for Mellon AI?
We are also developing solutions to augment other industries like Manufacturing, Banking, Education, and Human Resources Management. For the education industry, we are developing an attention (of students) capture solution, while approaching the manufacturing industry with a solution to increase the efficiency of production. As far as expansion is concerned, launching an office in Dubai is also on the cards.
Do you have any funding plans ahead?
Right now, we believe in bootstrapping rather than funding and we believe that our products can yield us more than the funding.
