AI Healthcare
AI between therapy sessions lifts attendance and eases depression scores
By Arjun
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10 Aug 10:08 AM
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Via npj Digital Medicine
A preregistered npj Digital Medicine study of employer-sponsored psychotherapy found AI-enabled continuous care features linked to 5 percent higher session attendance and faster return for a second visit versus matched employers without those tools (early cohort n=26,208). Over up to six months (n=5,518), AI access added small further reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms (d=0.15 to 0.16), with a number needed to treat of 25 for reliable improvement. Caveat: the design is cluster-matched and quasi-experimental, not randomized, and every author reports employment or equity ties to Spring Health, which supplies the AI features.
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Bharat Hospital and Institute of Oncology in Mysuru launched an AI-powered MRI and will offer free Sunday scans for smokers and tobacco users for four weeks, The Hindu reported. Radiologists say Deep Resolve and My Assist cut scan time from about 20 to 30 minutes to 10 to 15 minutes while improving image quality, with blood samples collected for cancer biomarker study during the pilot. Chairman B.S. Ajaikumar framed the push around tobacco-linked cancer risk locally. The hospital presents the system as clinician assist, not autonomous diagnosis. It is a single-centre rollout with a short free window, so wider expansion depends on still-unpublished pilot results.
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Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda released a Praxis-FICCI knowledge paper, AI in MedTech, at India Medical Device 2026, arguing India has digital foundations but not yet an ecosystem for routine clinical AI. The note, covered by ETHealthworld, flags AI diagnostics as the first large-scale use case and lists priorities around better data and evidence, lifecycle rules for adaptive models, and procurement plus reimbursement paths. It cites ABDM, IndiaAI, SAHI, BODH, and the 2023 medical devices policy as starting points. The paper is guidance, not a binding CDSCO rule change, so hospitals still face the same reimbursement and liability gaps.
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