Bangkok Dusit Medical Services Public Company Limited, or BDMS, announced an investment in CARIVA, Thailand's forefront medical technology start-up company in Southeast Asia as a medical AI developer of Medical Large Language Models (Medical LLMs). This project aims to leverage Thailand’s medical advancement to the next level by bringing artificial intelligence (AI) innovations to help interpret, analyse, and provide relevant information to the lab examination. This AI implementation functions as a medical assistant in analysing the patients’ conditions to heighten the efficiency of care and is one of BDMS' Sandbox projects to develop innovations in 5 areas: disease screening and diagnosis, data analysis for service improvement, technology for work process reduction, technology for timely health monitoring, and technology for sustainable medical services.
This collaborative investment helps raise the bar in preventive healthcare services, personalised medicine, preliminary screening for abnormalities, and data analysis from individual test results for effective and timely treatment, especially prevention from chronic diseases in the future which can be detected and prevented beforehand. BDMS aims to drive cutting-edge health innovation development to allow quick and convenient access to health information which helps improve the quality of life through comprehensive and equitable healthcare.
BDMS and Start-Up Collaborations
In the past 3 years, BDMS has provided funding to 4 start-up companies in Thailand to jointly develop multiple healthcare innovations. Currently, 7 newly developed innovation projects have already been put into practice to help improve medical standards and healthcare services through artificial intelligence innovations used by medical personnel.
Dr. Patcharin Boonyarungsun, Vice President of Sustainability, Quality, and Innovation Management; Bangkok Dusit Medical Services Public Company Limited, revealed that last year BDMS put more than 1,500 million Baht in Series A level investments, to jointly develop medical and healthcare innovations with Thai start-up companies. As a result, BDMS successfully launched projects including the Perceptra Project which uses AI to read x-ray results for medical radiologists, the Mineed Project or a dissolving needle (Microneedle) that helps in the treatment and is not toxic to the body, the OOCA application that was developed for use in online consultations with psychiatrists and psychologists, the "BeDee" application, providing Tele-health, Tele-pharmacy, Tele-medicine service, medical supplies (Health Mall), and health knowledge through curated Health content.
“These projects supported by BDMS are part of the Sandbox programme aiming to create change in the Healthcare industry by streamlining these AI innovations to help increase efficiency in many aspects of physicians’ work. The development of AI innovation, however, cannot be accomplished alone. As for BDMS, we work hand in hand with the government sector, medical schools, and start-up companies to alleviate medical services, with an emphasis on physical and mental health which are both important as we strive to develop sustainable quality of life. We sincerely hope to be one of the forces that help raise Thai public health standards to further increase the country's competitiveness,” Dr. Patcharin concluded.
CARIVA’s Role in Medical AI
CARIVA’s Medical LLMs under the name PreceptorAI is a medical chatbot on the LINE application that has been in service since April 2023, acting as a consultant and decision-making assistant for medical personnel.
Mr. Siwadon Matayakun, the co-founder of CARIVA (Thailand) Co., Ltd., said that from the beginning, CARIVA has continued to expand the innovation of medical artificial intelligence to be an assistant for medical personnel, such as 'Lab Interpretation Solution', 'ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition),' recording and validating real-time medical order data using automatic speech recognition technology which helps record medical information more accurately and quickly, while also reduces the burden of paperwork in the work process with 'Symptom Checkers' - an AI in the form of a chatbot to assess symptoms and analyse the possibility of disease. CARIVA's artificial intelligence technology combined with the expertise of medical personnel will help promote BDMS's medical excellence and is ready to expand this implementation to leading hospitals overseas.
Sandbox Trials and Health Ecosystem
In addition, Mr. Narongchai Limpiyapirom, the co-founder of CARIVA (Thailand) Co., Ltd., said that the “Lab Interpretation” project under the Sandbox has been trialled at the Health Design Centre at Bangkok Hospital Head Office to help interpret health data in collaboration with medical experts. Besides increasing patient care service efficiency, this project also connects to health data and displays results in a digital format through the BeDee Health Ecosystem Platform. This allows patients to access information anywhere, anytime, including being able to receive health services, including medical consultations through Tele-consultation, medicine delivery service, and necessary medical supplies through Tele-pharmacy and Health Mall, including receiving health information for comprehensive health care through Health Content, where all services are performed by expert medical personnel in the BDMS network.
Dr. Sarita Bunsupha, Managing Director of Health Plaza Company Limited, a BDMS subsidiary that develops the BeDee Application, said that in addition to the benefits that AI will help doctors read health examination results for greater accuracy in data analysis, users can also read their health results in a modern, beautiful, and easy-to-understand format. In case of any abnormalities found in health examination results, such as a risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, or other diseases, the patient can plan further treatment by consulting a specialised doctor, or a pharmacist free of charge through a single BeDee application.
