An innovative AI tool to improve health care delivery in rural India

At a rural hospital in the Tamil Nadu region of India last summer, fourth-year Prithvi Parthasarathy led a multidisciplinary, AI-driven project that was more than just a research endeavor: It was a culturally meaningful experience that connected him with his family’s roots. It also further affirmed his career goal to improve health care delivery systems.

Supported by the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) Summer Research Funds program, Parthasarathy—a neuroscience major in the School of Arts & Sciences from Malvern, Pennsylvania—interned at the Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, India, the core facility of a medical system providing ophthalmology care for rural and underserved communities in the Tamil Nadu region. The CASI Summer Internship enables Penn undergraduates to gain practical field experience while building cross-cultural appreciation.

Parthasarathy, whose parents are from Tamil Nadu, had illuminating interactions with patients and designed an AI tool to improve hospital-wide efficiency. “I’m really interested in not only being a physician but also bringing the health care system to the patients, and designing the system aspects as well,” says Parthasarathy, who serves as a patient navigator at Penn Medicine.

Intern innovation: An eye for AI

Due to high population density and patient volume, Aravind faces long wait times, overburdened staff, and inefficiencies with patient referrals. Parthasarathy, minoring in health care management and pursuing an accelerated master’s in bioengineering at the School of Engineering and Applied Science, leveraged his interdisciplinary Penn studies to help address systems-level issues and drive patient-centered solutions.

Parthasarathy started by surveying physicians and hospital administrators to identify the key issues that patients face during their visits, as well as observing how patients navigate hospital entry. He found that patients often arrive for general checkups but are routed to additional, unnecessary kiosks. In many other cases, patients report specific symptoms upon entry, only to be referred to the wrong specialists and testing areas.

“I wanted to chart out their exact path from A-to-Z in the general clinic from the moment they step into the hospital,” Parthasarathy says.

The hospital already used a basic algorithm for entry routing, but Parthasarathy integrated the software with patient records, training it to deliver a more personalized, efficient experience. He developed and piloted an AI triage tool that can “generate a map of where [patients] need to go,” enabling hospital nurses to help route patients to the appropriate doctors and ensure they have access to relevant, timely follow-up care. It also helps doctors streamline and personalize care based on individual patient needs.

This AI triage mechanism, Parthasarathy says, is especially helpful for older adults, who may face additional stressors from long wait times and inaccurate referrals.

Integrating Penn studies and patient impact

Engaging with patients was central to Parthasarathy’s intern experience. He understands Tamil, the local dialect, and asked patients what had brought them to the hospital and how they were experiencing their visits. Their responses helped guide Parthasarathy’s development of the AI triage tool. Connecting with patients “on a personal level,” both from a care delivery and cultural perspective, he says, “was deeply rewarding.”

Studying neuroscience at Penn gave Parthasarathy a useful foundation of the underlying biological mechanisms of visual systems and disease. Insights from health care management courses helped him design the AI triage tool so that it’s scalable at other facilities. His background in bioengineering also helped inform the tool’s integration and workflows.

“From a bioengineering perspective, I think it really helped me take a step back and see [how to] make things more efficient and connect different things operating in silos in the hospital,” he says.

Next steps and post-grad plans

As Parthasarathy works toward graduation this May, the impact of his project lives on. Aravind staff are now testing the triage software in smaller care facilities across the health care system and may expand the AI tool to more locations.

This summer, Parthasarathy will focus on applying to medical school. He envisions a career centered on strengthening health care infrastructure through clinical insight and research. “I want to focus on improving how patients experience care,” says Parthasarathy, also a pancreatic cancer researcher at Penn Medicine, co-director of the Philadelphia Lung Cancer Screening Initiative, and participant in the Germination Project, a high school-Penn Medicine program that prepares youth to address infrastructure problems across the region.

Parthasarathy credits the CASI Summer Internship with strengthening his autonomy as a student-researcher and empowering him to bring innovative ideas to life. “It gave me room to expand my intellect,” he says, “and work with a lot of people from different backgrounds, different experiences, different spheres of life.”