A Shanghai hospital has introduced China’s first artificial intelligence system designed to aid cardiologists, aiming to address the country’s growing demand for cardiac care. The system, known as CardioMind, is intended to assist, not replace, human doctors facing significant patient loads.
CardioMind was jointly developed by Zhongshan Hospital, affiliated with Fudan University, and the Shanghai Academy of Artificial Intelligence for Science. The AI compares patient data to global research findings to provide diagnostic suggestions. The system utilizes decades of anonymized patient records, along with international research and treatment guidelines, in its training.
Ge Junbo, a leading cardiologist and academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who spearheaded the project, explained the system’s function. “We’re feeding it cardiovascular data and teaching it to think like a top expert cardiologist,” he said. “With the help [of AI], our doctors can serve more patients, reduce the overall workload, and improve the quality of diagnosis and treatment,” Ge told Yicai Global News.
Proponents of AI tools like CardioMind suggest that these technologies could be especially beneficial in China, where an aging population and a shrinking workforce strain medical resources even more intensely. The Zhongshan cardiology department, for example, managed 820,000 outpatient visits last year with a team of 136 physicians, demonstrating the pressures on the country’s top public hospitals.
