CES 2023 was the ultimate stage for companies showcasing their AI innovation. Harman, a subsidiary of Samsung, was no different. At the event, the company’s Digital Transformation Solutions (DTS) business unit released its Intelligent Healthcare Platform that uses predictive analytics, visualisation, object detection, and natural language understanding to deliver better medical diagnoses in the field, and improve patient experiences. 

To learn more about the platform and Harman DTS’ other offerings, we reached out to Dr Jai Ganesh, chief product officer for digital transformation solutions at Harman DTS. 

A new approach to healthcare AI

While we have seen many advancements in prediction models in the healthcare industry, implementing these into the current systems takes considerable effort. Twin problems of patient confidentiality and the mission-critical nature of predictions compound upgrade inertia in the healthcare sector. For example, a wrong prediction can result in a faulty diagnosis, putting patients at risk. This raises the stakes when developing an AI for healthcare applications, introducing the need to involve a human in the decision-making cycle. Patient confidentiality is another important area of development for the healthcare sector, as seen by the rise of standards such as HIPAA and GDPR. 

Solving these concerns and more, Harman DTS’ latest healthcare platform focuses on compliance, privacy, and safety, as these are must-haves in the industry. It specialises in improving the efficiency and accuracy of medical diagnoses by using image processing and natural language understanding with a focus on providing customer-centric services. 

Elaborating on the capabilities of the platform, Ganesh said, “The AI/ML modules power customer-centric analysis, detect anomalies, predict future states, and support rapid decision-making. Harman DTS’ customer-centric solutions, deep understanding of data, advanced analytics, and end-to-end platforms have helped deliver truly transformational results in the healthcare industry.”

The platform also has measures in place to ensure data governance, along with controls for the management of information with a focus on privacy and integrity. It comprises four key components. One module aims to use machine learning and deep learning for use cases like remote patient care, unstructured document processing, and demand forecasting. It also uses predictive algorithms for anomaly detection and rapid decision-making supplemented by doctors. 

Apart from having discrete modules for storing data and visualisation of stored data, the platform also has a governance module. This provides users with a portal to access various HIPAA-compliant services to further improve their capabilities. 

“The Intelligent Healthcare Platform is built for agility. Agile and flexible operations are embedded through simplified processes, improved collaboration, faster decisions from unstructured data and automation of IT architectures,” remarked Ganesh. 

Solutions for the future

The healthcare platform isn’t the only place that Harman DTS is using AI and ML in. A handful of their products leverage AI to solve unique business problems. The Defensight platform, mainly made to serve the security needs of enterprise users, uses data wrangling and predictive analytics methods, along with analytics and visualisation techniques to generate risk scores and predict attack vectors. The system is also able to intelligently cross-reference internal data points to external databases of possible attack vectors to provide proactive protection against threats. Using predictive analysis, the system also reduces operational cost and remediation time, while seeking out compliance deviations.

IoT in a box, a low-code edge development platform, is part of Harman DTS’ toolchain to build capable edge AI applications. The software also uses machine learning to detect anomalies in data collected by IoT sensors, as well as for predictive maintenance of edge devices. The company has also leveraged AI to create a conversational agent termed Harman eNOVA, enabling capabilities such as automatic speech recognition, natural language understanding, and speech synthesis.

India as a launchpad 

Even as Harman DTS creates solutions with a global focus, India is a very important part of their strategy. Over 6,000 of Harman DTS’ 7,000 employees are based in India, and the company has also set up an incubation centre in the country. “India is an incubation centre for many of our innovative digital solutions,” said Ganesh, further stating that they have set up a 5G test lab in Gurgaon which caters to their telecom and infrastructure clients globally.

The 5G test lab provides end-to-end testing for consumer 5G devices, and has capabilities of simulating a 5G radio to measure application performance. It can also simulate different network conditions and performance in specific use-cases like VR, video, and more. 

Building out capabilities such as Harman DTS’ 5G Test lab will allow Indian manufacturers to test their 5G capabilities under all conditions. Keeping in line with India’s self-reliance goals, the company is building the required infrastructure for India’s companies to flourish.