From the labs
An AI-assisted system for capturing, managing and analysing clinical data in hospitals and clinics has been developed by Plenome Technologies, a company founded by Prof. Prabhu Rajagopal of IIT-Madras.
The platform, christened AshwinAI, captures clinical data through voice, converts it into structured electronic health records, and generates diagnostic insights while ensuring secure handling of patient data. It is designed to record medical data during patient consultations. Instead of doctors manually filling forms, the system allows voice-based entry of clinical information, which is converted into structured digital records. It supports multiple Indian and foreign languages, and converts conversations and notes into structured electronic health records, thereby helping reduce paperwork for doctors and standardising medical records.
The system maintains secure patient records and medical histories, allowing hospitals to manage and retrieve data more efficiently. Once records are structured, the platform can run AI analysis to generate insights, potentially helping doctors with diagnosis patterns, treatment tracking, and patient trends. In other words, the AI layer converts raw clinical notes into usable medical intelligence.
Much of a doctor’s work still gets recorded in handwritten notes or free-text entries in hospital software. Such records are difficult for computers to analyse. AshwinAI attempts to change this by capturing information — often through voice input during consultations — and converting it into structured electronic health records that software systems can analyse.
Another noteworthy feature is the multilingual use. In India, doctors often speak to patients in regional languages but record notes in English. AshwinAI is designed to capture spoken input and convert it into usable digital records, potentially in multiple languages. Furthermore, the data layer created by AshwinAI is extremely valuable, because once patient information is captured in a structured digital format across thousands of consultations, it becomes possible to run analytics on disease patterns, treatment outcomes and clinical workflows. Such datasets can support research, improve hospital management and enable more advanced AI tools in the future.
A device for borewell rescues
A borewell rescue device has been developed by Sadham Usean Ramasamy, a PhD scholar at IIT-Madras. The device was recently demonstrated at the National Disaster Response Force campus in Arakkonam, near Chennai.
Borewell accidents involving children slipping into deep borewells have claimed many young lives. Many scientists and inventors have been working on developing rescue devices. The machine developed by Ramasamy is one such.
A tripod is balanced on the ground, above the borewell opening. A holder, with a camera, is slowly lowered into the hole. When the holder reaches the trapped child, an oxygen supply valve snaps open.
The holder also has inflatable balloons; these are first positioned around the child and then inflated. The child is securely held by the holder. The winch motor on the ground gently pulls the child out.
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Published on March 9, 2026
