Zini in a bot: This Alexa-like bot can be your friendly doctor who can judge 950+ symptoms

Zini is the real answer to having more access to medical care, said Dr Sharma. While the pandemic has brought the doctor to your phone, it has not solved the issue of a low doctor-patient ratio
Zini has been on the table since 2017 (Pic: Zini/EdexLive)
Zini has been on the table since 2017 (Pic: Zini/EdexLive)

India has had a scarcity of doctors of years but it was felt the most during the pandemic, especially when the second wave of the Coronavirus rocked the country. This is a perennial problem that COVID-19 has only made evident. What if your basic diagnosis did not need a doctor?

Dr Rohit Sharma has done just that with his voice-based medical aid assistant, Zini. “Zini is an app you can talk to about your medical issues. We have made Zini adaptable to any conversation. So, it’s not just choosing options of which symptoms you have and analysing your ailment, you can tell Zini what your issues are in detail and it will collect the basic information from you. This is a major part of diagnosis — history collection. Due to the lack of doctors, the average doctor in India can only spend about 30 seconds with a patient, chatting up about what the problem is and how they are feeling,” said Dr Sharma, a 33-year-old physician who has delved into the world of innovation. 

Zini is the real answer to having more access to medical care, said Dr Sharma. While the pandemic has brought the doctor to your phone, it has not solved the issue of a low doctor-patient ratio. "Zini can easily solve that issue. The first phase of patient care is history taking, which Zini is already adeptly performing. The second stage is the general physical examination, which involves checking pulse, blood pressure, etc which can be done through smart wearables. For the next part, we need the patients to come to a clinic for now but we are working on AI-driven analytics for the specialised examination as well. The lab and scan reports can also be made AI-driven with time. And then comes the treatment advice," said Dr Sharma.

So, how accurate is Zini? The creators claim that Zini knows more than 250 ailments and 950+ symptoms and can suggest the best treatments and suggestions to the patient. Not only physiological illnesses, but Zini can also tend to patients with mental illnesses. "It is much easier to talk to a bot than to a human being about your mental issues. We still have a lot of prejudices that inhibit us from talking openly to people. Zini can be the replacement for the first point of contact," said Dr Sharma.

Zini has been on the table since 2017 and has been painstakingly developed by Dr Sharma and his Co-Founders — Raj Sehgal, Legal and Corporate Affairs, Abhishek Prasoon, CTO, Yugal Sharma, AI head, and Sandeep Singh, Chief Business Development Officer.

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