World’s First AI powered Ayurveda Protocols launched in India; prospects of its linkage of AYUSH grid brighten up

Boarding a wobbly roadways bus, a white dhoti-kurta clad young man, with prominent vermilion tilak on his forehead, used to head for mythological twin city of Mathura and Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh, clutching tightly his voluminous jute bag, stuffed with rare Ayurvedic medicines in small folded paper pouches for free distribution to patients at ISKON center every weekend in early nineties.

But, now, sporting a brick colored shirt and creamy Nehru jacket and matching tight trousers, Ayurveda medicines practitioner Dr. Pratap Chauhan recently unveiled world's first artificial intelligence backed protocol, based on an architecture of a huge database of patients and their successful cure.

Moved by the protocols’ apparent efficacy, India’s Ayush secretary, Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, minced no words for exploration of a possibility to have a link of the protocols with the ministry’s recently floated grid for the popularization of India’s traditional medicines at international fora.

Dr. Chauhan, director Jiva Ayurveda, narrated his arduous journey and said India’s traditional medicines efficacy was being recognized the world over, and his protocol would help according to it a scientific explanation on various parameters.

Ayush Secretary Rajesh Kotecha (middle) unveiling Ayurveda protocol by a remote button being held by Dr Partap Chauhan  

He had started his journey from a small dispensary in a garage in Haryana in 1992 ,an d now , a globe trotter is interacting world famous universities for deeper scientific researches on country’s 5000 years old traditional medicines.

   

 The personalized treatment syndrome is catching up and researchers are underway how to promote personalized treatment for more accuracy.

He said the World’s first Diagnostic Protocols for Ayurveda would turn this ancient healing tradition into data- and evidence-driven system of medicine and JIVA Health App

These protocols meant  to standardize the practice of Ayurveda have taken four years to develop after analyzing the consultation records of more than two lakh patients; The protocols have been successfully run on 20,000 patients till now, with dramatic results ;This system will create a wealth of data and evidence that will go on to validate Ayurveda as a legitimate science of treatment, boosting its acceptability worldwide ; The JIVA health app will provide authentic and actionable health and wellness information with content exclusively curated by Dr.Partap Chauhan.

JIVA group President Rishi Pal Chauhan has said the JIVA Ayunique protocols are like an operating system for Ayurveda practice that structures the practice of Ayurveda and creates a wealth of data.  

It is well known that unlike Allopathy, which is focused on symptoms and standardized drug choices, Ayurveda is fundamentally a personalized system of medicine.

 Even though thousands of years old, this traditional system of healing, conceptually, is a far more evolved science. For instance, personalized medicine (based on genomics) and the “systems view” of human health is only now beginning to come into fashion in allopathy, when Ayurveda has been built around these very concepts.

Yet, Ayurveda is not accepted as a medical science. As a result, Ayurveda medicines can’t be exported to other countries and Ayurveda practitioners abroad are forced to operate as “Health & Wellness Coaches.”

The reason is that the scientific community asks for data and evidence – on what basis are the medicines given and how is their effect proven?

This data and evidence Ayurveda does not have. The big question is: “How do you standardize a system of medicine that is fundamentally personalized, with patients being given different treatment based on the root cause, even if the symptoms are the same?”

This is the challenge of mapping intuitive Eastern systems of medicine over objective Western frameworks. Data Analysis of Consultation Records of Two Lakh Patients Four years ago, Jiva Ayurveda began a huge data analytics project, reviewing the consultation records of two lakh patients that its doctors had treated over the decades.

 After analysis running into thousands of hours using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer modeling, the Jiva analysts concluded that while the Ayurveda treatment cannot be standardized for every patient, Ayurveda practice can surely be standardized.

In other words, the way Ayurveda practitioners diagnose patients can be standardized by laying down definite protocols. This methodology currently exists only in the mind of the Ayurveda practitioner and each arrives at the diagnosis in his own way.

The result of this is that no consistent data can be generated and the methodology cannot be validated.

And so began at Jiva the painstaking process of writing diagnostic protocols around the practice of Ayurveda by scanning the consultation records of lakhs of patients.

India’s First-ever Protocols for Ayurveda the protocols that have been created over the last four years by Jiva.

These protocols – and the decision support system built over them -- help Ayurveda practitioners anywhere in the world arrive at the correct diagnosis in a data-driven way.

The system also categorizes the diseases in terms of severity, which has a direct bearing on prognosis.

As the consultation protocol flows, based on patient answers, the system starts assigning weights to different diagnostic possibilities and makes calculations to arrive at an authoritative diagnosis.

 It helps avoid judgmental errors and the cost of the wrong diagnosis. It also suggests diagnostic clues that the doctor may have missed which may lead to a possible different line of treatment.

Narrating all these, Dr.Chauhan says these protocols to standardize the practice of Ayurveda – the first-ever to be attempted in India – signal a revolutionary shift. They are akin to Ayurveda’s operating system that is accessible to everybody. This system will create a wealth of data and evidence that will eventually go on to validate Ayurveda as a legitimate science of treatment, boosting its acceptability worldwide. The protocols have been run successfully on 20,000 patients so far, with dramatic results. Three international universities are collaborating with Jiva to validate this data. ( NEERAJ BAJPAI)