Artificial intelligence will equalize healthcare in China, CEO says

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Jim Wang, Chairman & Founder of Nova Vision Group, speaks during Fireside Chat on Day 2 of CNBC East Tech West at LN Garden Hotel Nansha Guangzhou on November 28, 2018 in Nansha, Guangzhou, China.

Artificial intelligence (A.I.) will level out the quality of health care in China in the coming decades, particularly closing the gap between rural and urban parts of the country, according to a CEO in the medical industry.

Speaking at CNBC’s East Tech West conference in the Nansha district of Guangzhou, China, Jim Wang, CEO of health care conglomerate NovaVision Group, which owns brands focused on eyecare, said new advances in A.I. would help heal discrepancies between rural and urban health care in China.

“Over the last 30 to 40 years, not enough medical resources have been deployed (equally) … There’s a lot of mistreatment. Medical A.I. will smooth that over. For example, we can train A.I. to support the rural countryside medical doctors. This is what’s being done in China,” he told CNBC’s Chery Kang.

Wang is hopeful that A.I can plug the gap between rural and urban health care. He said that bringing A.I. advances into health care such as algorithm cameras to scan for preventative measures could put less pressure on hospitals in China’s major cities.

“We are raising people’s awareness of vision care. We can screen over 1,000 diseases just from one screening or picture of your eye. We’ve found diseases with 97 percent accuracy. In China, we don’t have family doctors and a referral system. Everyone will go to the big hospitals, which is why big hospitals are very cramped.”